Teenagers bashed into having `bonus babies'
13.10.2007

TEENAGE Aboriginal girls in north Queensland who use birth control are being bashed by their partners because they want the girls to get pregnant so they can grab the $4000 commonwealth baby bonus cheque.
Lara Wieland, who runs a health clinic on the Atherton Tableland near Cairns, warned the same violent treatment of girls could also be occurring in poorer, non-indigenous centres.
Dr Wieland, who spent three years as the resident doctor in Kowanyama community in Cape York and who returns there three times a year to run holiday camps for the local children, said she counselled the girls who were being abused to ``get out of the relationship''.
``Young Aboriginal girls come to me to get contraception because they are in relationships, and we use Implanon contraception which lasts for about three years,'' Dr Wieland said.
Implanon is a matchstick-sized implant that is placed under the skin just above the inside of the elbow. It contains a hormone that prevents pregnancy by stopping ovulation.
``The girls ask me if I can implant it somewhere other than the arm because that is the standard place we are supposed to put it -- and the fellows feel for it and tell them they are not allowed to have the implant because they want them to get pregnant,'' Dr Wieland said.
``I talk to the girls about getting out of that relationship if they have a bloke who knocks them up for the money and bashes them if they don't. I just tell them to find a new man.''
Dr Wieland said an increasing number of 14- and 15-year-old girls were geting pregnant in the remote communities. ``The youngest I have dealt with was a 12-year-old girl who was pregnant, but I am hearing there are lots more kids getting pregnant now.''
The increase in the number of teenagers having children was confirmed by health workers in Mornington Island community in the lower Gulf of Carpentaria who said that out of the island's population of about 1000 people, six girls aged 14 to 16 were pregnant.