Dirty big secret
17.05.2006
A new report reveals that constant calls for an end to child sex abuse and violence in some indigenous communities have been ignored, writes Tony Koch
WHEN Prime Minister John Howard visited Napranum and Aurukun Aboriginal communities near Weipa on Queensland's Cape York, he was approached at a barbecue by Cape York community medico Lara Wieland.
Wieland, who was employed by the Royal Flying Doctor Service, had served four years at the community and was outspoken about the lack of action over sexual and physical abuse. She met Howard and handed him a 10-page letter outlining the incidents of abuse, the inaction and solutions suggested by her and her medical colleagues.
That meeting was on August 5, 2003. Nothing happened.
Back then, Wieland was put under so much pressure by the Queensland health department that she quit. She now works for an indigenous health organisation on the Atherton Tableland near Cairns and assists Noel Pearson's Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership on health policy.
Her letter to the Prime Minister said children on remote Aboriginal communities suffered continuous serious sexual abuse because doctors' reports of the incidents given to the Queensland Department of Communities were not passed on to police.
Wieland wrote that child sexual abuse and neglect were out of control, adding that most young women in Aboriginal communities had been sexually abused. She gave details of children as young as five with sexually transmitted disease, yet Queensland Health discouraged testing children for STDs.
``Doctors are told to test children only when a child is symptomatic and even this is discouraged,'' she wrote. ``Despite this, I have had many patients aged five or six test positive for STDs such as chlamydia.''
Almost 13 years later, a damning report from Northern Territory prosecutor Nanette Rogers, published this week, shows little has changed. Sexual abuse against children and violence against women continues to tear apart Aboriginal communities around the nation. Perpetrators go unpunished, victims carry lifelong physical and mental scars and whistleblowers face paybacks.
There is a group of highly respected doctors who have been working in the Cape York indigenous communities for decades: Clive Hadfield, Richard Heazlewood and Patsy Bjerragaard. All have constantly campaigned to have something done about sexual abuse of children. Their pleas have been ignored.
In 1999, Aboriginal academic Boni Robertson led an inquiry of 50 women, representing all indigenous communities in Queensland, to look into alcoholism and abuse of women and children in remote communities. Several women originally appointed to the committee had to be replaced because they were assaulted by men from their communities when it was discovered what they were investigating.
Robertson's acclaimed report was tabled in the Queensland parliament in 2000. She then co-chaired round-table national conferences across Australia to establish programs to address these serious issues. They included one on sexual violence and perpetrator prevention in Adelaide and another on sexual assault prevention in Canberra.
What changed? Nothing.
Robertson, who served 10 years on the Queensland Parole Board, says without exception every Aboriginal prisoner who came before her on that board said excessive alcohol consumption contributed to his crime.
``There is no worse a crime imaginable than sexual assault of children and there is no way it can be argued off as being in any way a cultural issue,'' Robertson says.
``I know how many of our women had to fight with police and judicial officers to accept that these were serious crimes and perpetrators should not have been getting off as though it is not an offence. It is not cultural to sexually abuse children in any civilisation in the world. I just cannot believe that we are still hearing these horror stories and nothing is being done to address the core issues. We have to address the reasons why these crimes occur in our communities, why there is the alcohol and other substance addiction.''
Pearson, director of the Cape York Institute for Policy and Leadership, ``completely agrees there should be, and should have been, a retrospective blitz on every known case of abuse on indigenous communities''.
He says physical or sexual abuse of children is ``totally reprehensible and not acceptable in any community''. Parents who neglect their children and allow them to become targets of sexual predators are also culpable.
``We proposed this to government and got no response,'' Pearson says. ``It transpired that police stop investigations into abuse when they talk to the families and are told they do not know anything about the incident. They are not persisted with. The police basically stop the investigation. Anybody who possesses information of an assault on a child should have to give that information.''
Pearson says the Queensland Government had not assisted by appointing community justice groups comprising local elders but giving them no support. ``We asked for laws to be changed so that members of the justice groups could not be abused or sworn at, but that never happened. Why should an old woman be sworn at when she is walking down the street, just because she is trying to do something for her community by being on the justice group? We sought to have them protected, but that just never happened.''
On January 30, 2004, a week before the Queensland election, a dozen Aboriginal mothers, grandmothers and health workers gathered at Cherbourg Aboriginal community in southern Queensland.
They had stories to tell, with one of the older women telling how her three-year-old grand-daughter complained of sexual abuse and a medical examination revealed she had syphilis.
``Police charged a bloke, but he walked away free because they said there was lack of evidence,'' she said. ``How does a little baby get a disease like that other than from abuse?''
Health worker Larian Hayes said at the meeting: ``Cherbourg is invaded by parasites and predators. These are adults who know right from wrong. Last year we had more than 20 serious cases of sexual abuse referred to us and there were a lot more that were unreported. We were getting two a week in the lead-up to Christmas.''
Group leader Lillian Gray says the women are concerned that men accused of rape and serious offences are allowed back into the community, and even if they are ordered not to do so, they break bail and return.
The most telling of all statistics revealed by the women was that not one conviction had been recorded in the local courts for rape in more than 20 years. Not one Aborigine was selected to serve on a jury.
The obvious inference put by the women, who spoke at grave personal risk, was that all-white juries let perpetrators go because it was not considered that rape occurred with black women, that it was, somehow, an accepted practice. Gray says the situation is now much better, with a women's shelter and a children's shelter being provided, and authorities, including police, compelled to speak to the women's critical incident group about any incidents of abuse so that the perpetrators can be charged.
``My view always has been that if an abuse of a child occurs, the cultural response should be to find the abuser and cut his cock off,'' Gray says.
Australia's most experienced indigenous nurse, activist Gracelyn Smallwood, from Townsville in north Queensland, says she is ``absolutely appalled'' that sexual violence against children still occurs.
``There should be police in all these communities,'' says Smallwood.
``Every abuser should be charged and put through the court and justice system. It is just bullshit to say anything like this is cultural. The truth is that women in communities are too frightened to talk about these issues. Children who are abused later become abusers themselves. I have seen an 11 1/2-year-old girl come into Townsville hospital and have a baby. That was in the 1970s and I was absolutely horrified. She was just a baby herself. I have treated scores of young girls with STDs and there is only one way they get that. They talk to me and tell me about it, but nobody is charged.
``If we are going to have strong and healthy communities, we have to tackle these problems openly. I have been nursing in communities since 1967 and I am frustrated that nothing is being done. They get away with it the first time, so they repeat their conduct. And the young victims look helplessly around for somebody who cares and who will do something, but there is nobody.''
