Child abuse and domestic violence in Aboriginal communities

The story on Lateline on Monday night was a real eye-opener.  Cases of child sexual abuse, violence and murder among Aboriginal communities in Central Australia were documented by Crown prosecutor Dr Nannette Rogers … most of them just horrifying.

Some examples:

Yes, the two-year-old was playing outside with some other children. Her
mother was away from the house, drunk in a small town. The offender
woke up, took the small child, carried it out bush, had the child out
bush for some hours. Undressed the child and inserted, simultaneously,
two fingers in her vagina and two fingers in her anus and moved his
fingers up and down a number of times causing injuries. He then - I’m
sorry, he had his trousers off while this was happening. Then he placed
the child on his lap and had his penis next to the child’s vagina and
tried to masturbate and so on. And eventually returned the child back
to his father’s camp. He was carrying the child with its legs on the
side. The child was crying throughout the assault. The child was still
crying and bleeding. He handed the child to his drunken father. He
himself had been drinking. The father then took the child back to the
area that the child had been removed from and when the mother returned
from town, where she’d been drinking, the child was crying and the
other children indicated that the offender had taken her away some time
before and it was then that the bleeding and so on was noticed in her
nappy.

and:

TONY JONES: There are other cases. One of them is almost too depraved
to talk about, but one feels you have to, in a way, get these things
out in the open. But this is of an 18-year-old petrol sniffer who
actually drowns a young girl while he’s raping her?

NANETTE
ROGERS: That happened several years ago. A number of children aged
about four, five, six and eight, or something like that, were playing
in a water hole, maybe a kilometre or more from the community. They
were swimming or paddling and he had followed them, going from tree to
tree as they walked down to the water hole. While she was playing in
the water, he pulled her under and anally penetrated her and drowned
her, probably simultaneously. And the matter proceeded to - first of
all, there was a committal hearing before a magistrate and the children
gave very graphic evidence. Heart-wrenching evidence.

TONY JONES: What was their evidence?

NANETTE
ROGERS: Well, their evidence was that they saw him pulling her in the
water. They saw bubbles coming up. They tried to throw rocks at him in
an effort to get him to desist. And then they ran back to the community
to alert, you know, the grandparents.

TONY JONES: It’s almost incomprehensible. I mean, they were throwing rocks at him, they were yelling at him - he didn’t stop?

NANETTE ROGERS: No, it was awful, absolutely dreadful.

TONY JONES: Is there any way of explaining something like that? I mean apart from the fact he was sniffing petrol?

NANETTE
ROGERS: No, I think that cases like this and the sexual assaults of the
two-year-old and the seven-month-old baby are really beyond the range
of our comprehension. In normal behaviour, we expect people to be, say,
murdered or sexually assaulted or, you know, maybe stabbed, but not on
a constant basis - not in relation to horrible offences committed on
really small children. It’s beyond most people’s comprehension and
range of human experience.

Absolutely depraved!  There are no excuses for these sort of acts, by anyone, no matter how poor their circumstances, no matter what their mental state is, no matter what substances they are affected by.  Absolute zero tolerance of these behaviours, and the attitudes behind them, is required.  Doesn’t matter who is doing it, black, white, rich, poor …. there is simply no excuse and must be no tolerance.

I heard Warren Mundine talking on the radio today …I’m quite impressed with him (saw him on Insight a couple of weeks ago and he had some interesting thoughts on the ALP, of which he is president).  He basically said that child sexual abuse is common, and says authorities need to drop political correctness and get tough and practical in dealing with the problem.  Absolutely … pussyfooting around serves no-one well (just like with the Lebanese criminal gangs).

I would hope that these latest revelations shock the broader community into demanding more positive action in dealing with the disadvantage of aboriginal communities, to strongly police and prevent such crimes, to severely punish those guilty, support and protect those willing to dob them in or who try to stop them, etc.

I’ve spent about an hour in an aboriginal community  (in the NT) and it was a depressing place - dirty, rubbish strewn about, mangy dogs everywhere, houses in various states of disrepair, people hanging around doing nothing.  Other things I noticed were (what I thought) more than a fair share of people who appeared to be disabled, and the only store in the town doing a thriving trade in fried takeaways, coke and cigarettes.  (Yet I then went to another one, only about an hour’s drive away and it was completely different, much cleaner, well maintained, people’s appearance much better, less hanging around, etc).

Gotta say that Australia needs to do much better with bringing aboriginals into the 21st century and enjoying decent health, education and economic opportunity.  Some communities do quite ok for themselves, others desperately need kickstarting, and strong oversight and management to take them forward.  And, it would be completely pointless to repeat the sins of the past, things like ATSIC seemed to have been good only for pissing money down the drain.  With the federal budget awash with cash, it seems a good time to seriously think how we can do something positive, and then do it with strong direction and determination.

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