Aboriginal Child Abuse - Proposed Reform Posting III

Here is ANTaR's media release concerning what more and more Aboriginal people and their supporters are calling 'John Howard and the Liberal Party's guise to Aboriginal land grabbing for their uranium waste dumps'...

Government’s misguided approach will add to trauma of children

Draconian measures announced by the Prime Minister today in response to the crisis of child abuse in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities would only add to the suffering of children, according to Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTaR).

ANTaR National Director, Gary Highland said that the Prime Minister was right to describe the widespread abuse of Aboriginal children as a national emergency but wrong in the way his government was seeking to overcome it.

“Particularly horrifying is the plan to introduce compulsory health checks for all Aboriginal children to examine for signs of abuse – regardless of whether this is suspected,” Mr Highland said.

“Little children are sacred. Compulsory and potentially invasive checks of this kind will add to their trauma,” he said.

Mr Highland said there was no other group in society that would be subject to these kinds of measures.

“Can you imagine what would happen if the Government ordered compulsory health checks for Anglo, Chinese, Jewish or Muslim children? There’d be an uproar. Yet the Prime Minister thinks it is appropriate to enforce this on Aboriginal children,” he said.

Mr Highland said efforts to stamp out child abuse should target the perpetrators rather than demonise whole communities.

The Government response also seemed to ignore the findings of the Little Children are Sacred report that non-Aboriginal men were also responsible for the abuse of Aboriginal children.

“We should tackle the extent of pornography and there may even be a case for banning it, but if this is going to happen it should occur across the board – in mining camps, lounge rooms as well as Aboriginal communities.”

Mr Highland said that while stopping alcohol abuse was essential to overcoming child abuse, prohibition would be unlikely to achieve this.

“Prohibition hasn’t worked anywhere else in the world. Why does the Prime Minister think it will work in the Northern Territory?”

Mr Highland said there was no doubting the sincerity and commitment of the Prime Minister and Minister Brough in relation to ending child abuse, but their misguided approach would be unlikely to achieve it.

“The heavy handed control of Aboriginal people helped create the problems of child abuse and violence. More of the same is not going to solve them,” Mr Highland said.

ANTaR has worked extensively to support Aboriginal people who are overcoming violence and child abuse. In 2006 it organized a forum in Parliament House, Canberra bringing Aboriginal leaders who have successfully tackled abuse and violence together with politicians and public servants to discuss strategies to overcome these problems. ANTaR is currently campaigning to urge the NSW Government to properly fund its response to the abuse of Aboriginal children in that state. Its Success Stories in Indigenous Health booklet released this week also profiles a number of successful programs that are tackling child abuse and its effects.

Media contact: Gary Highland on 02 9555 6138 or 0418 476 940.