I’m all for preventing child sexual abuse and I’m no fan of pornography, but this strikes me as incredibly problematic:
Alcohol and pornographic material are to be banned in some indigenous communities in the north of Australia after a report claimed “rivers of grog” were fuelling the sexual abuse of children.
Announcing a series of surprise measures in parliament yesterday, Australia’s prime minister, John Howard, said children under 16 in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory would face compulsory medical examinations. More police officers would also be drafted in to help maintain law and order in the remote communities, including searching public computers for x-rated material, he said.
There’s no question that child sexual abuse is a huge problem — but targeting one long-oppressed native community strikes me as a tad bit racist. I’m also not a huge proponent of compulsory medical exams.
Little Children are Sacred, the 316-page report of the Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, said lack of education and alcoholism were the chief causes of child abuse in all 45 indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. Children as young as three were exposed to hardcore pornographic videos at home and had seen adults having sex, desensitising them to sexual behaviour.
Local police officers were accused of turning a blind eye to a “rampant informal sex trade” between Aboriginal girls aged 12 to 15 and non-Aboriginal local mineworkers, who paid the girls in alcohol, cash and other goods. Alcohol was used as a “bartering tool” by black and white men for sex with under-age girls, the report added.
Under the plan, there will be a moratorium on alcohol sales for six months. A permit system restricting non-Aboriginal access to indigenous land, which Mr Howard said made it easier for abuse to go undiscovered, will also be scrapped.
Alcohol causes child sexual abuse? Fascinating. I was under the impression that abusive assholes who get off on power and on harming children caused child sexual abuse. It also sounds like the non-Aboriginal mine workers who are having sex with underage girls are a significant part of the problem — but naturally, they aren’t being blocked from obtaining alcohol or porn.
I wouldn’t be a proper man-hating feminist if I didn’t point out the obvious fact that the vast majority of child sexual abuse (and sexual abuse in general) is perpetrated by men — men of every color and background. It would make a hell of a lot more sense to target men in general rather than Aborigines. Or, if alcohol and porn do cause child sexual abuse, ban ‘em for everyone.*
Call me crazy, but I don’t see a general or a sex-specific ban on pornography and alcohol gaining popularity any time soon.
*In case it’s not clear, I don’t favor general or sex-based bans on alcohol or pornography, and I’m not suggesting that this would be good policy.
I would be curious to learn whether alcohol has a culturally and ethnobiologically devastating impact in Aboriginal communities in Australia in the same way that it has had among some of the native communities and nations of North America. In Alaska, for example, extremely strict alcohol regulations apply in many areas predominantly inhabited by the Inuit or other native nations. In Canada, the Davis Inlet incident in Labrador was horrendous.
I don’t know the full history and am from the States; maybe those who know more can contribute for purposes of comparison.
In Alaska, the villages themselves decide whether or not they will be dry communities. There is quite a bit of a difference in the crime and suicide rates between the dry and wet communities. But, like I said, it is something that they impose on themselves not something imposed by the State.
Some of the sexual abuse mentioned in the article does seem to be stemming from the non-aboriginal mine workers not the girls who are being given the alcohol.
This just seems like a knee-jerk reaction, banning porn and alcohol, instead of addressing the real social issues causing these problems. And letting the non-Aboriginal dudes off the hook? It all seems like a way to dismiss the problem while appealing to racism to keep people from thinking too much about the situation.
Bruce:
I would be curious to learn whether alcohol has a culturally and ethnobiologically devastating impact in Aboriginal communities in Australia in the same way that it has had among some of the native communities and nations of North America.
Short answer: Yes.
Akshelby:
In Alaska, the villages themselves decide whether or not they will be dry communities. There is quite a bit of a difference in the crime and suicide rates between the dry and wet communities. But, like I said, it is something that they impose on themselves not something imposed by the State.
Yes, this happens in many Australian communities as well.
Some of the sexual abuse mentioned in the article does seem to be stemming from the non-aboriginal mine workers not the girls who are being given the alcohol.
Correct.
Avelyn
This just seems like a knee-jerk reaction, banning porn and alcohol, instead of addressing the real social issues causing these problems. And letting the non-Aboriginal dudes off the hook? It all seems like a way to dismiss the problem while appealing to racism to keep people from thinking too much about the situation.
Avelyn, would it help you understand if I told you that a Federal election is expected in approximately 6 months (not yet called), and the measures proposed are supposed to be implemented in roughly… 6 months?
It’s the election wedge issue, pure and simple. Aboriginal elders have been begging the Government for help for years, and only now has our PM (or his PR minders, more likely) taken any notice. And as far as the actual measures, most of the recommendations from the indigenous community themselves have been ignored.
Thanks for covering this; I saw it on BBC World yesterday and it had me fuming. It’s bad enough that aboriginals are pretty much forced to live in a modern equivalent of internment camps, bur Lard no, don’t put money into infrastructure for the community–job training, education, other social programs–just take away the brown peoples’ booze and spank mags.
It’s so nice that Whitey’s going to save them from themselves.
Um…
Am i losing something in translation here? Or am i seriously reading that the solution to this “rampant informal sex trade” involving non-Aborigines is to kill a permit system that restricts non-Aboriginal access?
That’s not even the worst of it Jill. The same order restricted access to benefits, introduced market rents to aboriginal communities, and confiscated aboriginal land.
Randomliberal – exactly – the racism Howard’s government gets away with is completely vile.
Here is a little more, from the Sydney Morning Herald:
Non-indigenous prey on young
As one Aussie woman put it for me – and was absolutely serious – “The aborigines have had a hard time adjusting to Australia”.
Wait a minute. Is he really proposing making overtly different laws for people of different races? I know they don’t have a Constitution… but sheesh. How exactly are they going to get away with that?
But maybe I’m being like the wagon train in the Far Side cartoon, the one being attacked by the Indians. “Hey! They’re lighting their arrows on fire! Can they *do* that?”
I don’t know that much about Australian common law. Can they *do* that? Can they make different laws for different races? Or is there some equivalent of the “equal protection” clause in their common law?
(Comment cross-posted on Susie Bright’s blog, where I first heard about this.)
The Howard government has been cutting funding to Indigenous community outreach programs as long as it has existed. They’re determined to ensure that health and education is completely non-existence for black Aussies.
The rape rate for Indigenous women is six times the rate for non-Indigenous women, and vast numbers of them report their rape as happening at the hands on non-Indigenous men… yet we see nothing about that. Various tribal elders have spoken out about the things they want for their people…. yet none of that is mentioned. Various Indigenous communities are already “dry”, and all that happens is that white locals set up a profitable illegal booze trade, and the truly desperate turn to petrol sniffing.
The cycle of abuse is well known, and many of the men doing the abusing were abused as children themselves, either by white locals or older Indigenous men. There is absolutely no work being done to help those men, to provide them with support and counselling in an attempt to prevent them from continuing the abuse cycle on the next generation. Instead, they have their culture stripped from them, are fed desperation, and then criticised if they fail to act in an entirely “civilised” fashion.
It makes me sick. Absolutely sick.
Children as young as three were exposed to hardcore pornographic videos at home and had seen adults having sex, desensitising them to sexual behaviour.
As if most children in history haven’t seen and heard their parents have sex.
Having a separate room for the kids is a modern phenomenon.
Our charming PM’s had such a positive reaction to this that he’s planning on extending notion of the docking our pocket money–excuse me, quarantining of the welfare payments of delinquent parents–to the broader Australian community as well.
Also overheard on the news last night (paraphrased): ‘Well, it might be violating people’s human rights, but that’s something I’m happy to do in this situation.’ Has even Bush ever been that blatant?
thanks for posting this. I think this ban is appallingly racist and ignorant. Not only does it suggest australian aboriginals need to be governed by rather than with, but it neglects all of the structural issues that have created issues of child abuse, including historic and violent racism as well as intervention by the state which ensured family breakdown and the destruction of culture. This is such an ineffectual and utterly offensive reaction to a serious problem that everyone should recognize their role in perpetuating.
I think this political cartoon sums it up nicely.
To explain, Aboriginal leaders have asked John Howard to apologise to Aboriginal people on behalf of the nation for the grave misdeeds perputated against them, in an effort to begin healing. Howard has always refused.
But oh! Suddenly he sees the light after 11 years! Look at how those poor Aboriginals are being treated! We must protect the children!
Except for the ones in the detention centres. That’s different.
We all know that it’s election point-scoring. We all know that this plan is bullshit. But politicians are finally starting to act, and that is, admittedly, a baby step in the right direction. I just hope that we’ll skip the political back-and-forth, find the best solution, and finally DO something.
Sorry to double-post, but my dad just brought this up.
So they want to ban X-rated porn in Aboriginal communities to protect children? Guess which state has the highest consumption of x-rated porn.
The ACT. The state where Canberra is, capital of Australia.
Hmmm.
Well, if it’s all for the children, surely we must ban X-rated porn across Australia right?
Oh wait, that would cost John votes. Nevermind.
I’m American, but I lived in Australia from 2002-2005, and my husband is Australian.
Alcohol abuse is a major problem in the Aboriginal community, much as it is in the Native American community. Of course, any reasonable human being is aware that banning alcohol isn’t the answer, and banning it for specific communities is only going to heighten the race-tensions that are already at extraordinary proportions.
A few years ago there was a race-related riot in Sydney when a white police officer killed an Aboriginal boy. Many Aboriginals live in third world condition, and the government just makes it worse. Their life expectancy is frighteningly low, and the poverty rate is astonishing. The problem is that they only make up around 2% of the population, so staging a movement similar to the U.S. Civil Rights movement would be all but impossible, at least without strong support from the white community. But the white community just isn’t willing to give it. In the same way that white Americans want to say that racism is “over” here and that slavery is ancient history, Australians want to pretend that the inequities with Aboriginals have also been fixed. This is despite the fact that as late as the 60s/70s, Aboriginal children were literally stolen from their parents to be raised in white homes, there were “breeding” books about how to try to literally erase the race of people. As a result, many Aboriginal people now appear white and do not identify as being Aboriginal (“pass” as white). Aboriginals were not even Australian citizens legally able to vote until the 70s!
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong on any of the dates, etc., as this is just a vague, condensed cultural history from my memories of course studies in Australia. I just thought that I would provide some background.
Also, Blunderbus, I’m pretty sure that Canberra is the only part of Australia where XXX porn is legal (whatever “XXX” means). Unless the law has changed, recently. Obviously the law is not enforced very well, but that’s what it says all the same. So Canberra is kind of the porn capital of Australia. But other types of porn (“X”- again, I’m not really clear on the differences) are available throughout the rest of the country.
Oh damn. My note is stuck in moderation. Help?
There are problems in Aboriginal communities all over Australia, but doing something constructive about them would involve having an actual commitment to Aboriginal welfare, of which this government has shown no signs whatsoever in the last decade, and the necessity of convincing state governments to also commit to it. Whereas the Northern Territory is not a state (even though it has its own territory-level government administration) and is effectively subject to power grabs by the Federal government whenever that looks like a vote-winner. So the Federal government can bring on the jackboots in the NT pretty much whenever they want, without even having to talk to the NT’s Chief Minister (who found out about these measures through the media like the rest of us).
I’m not sure what the exact implications are under anti-discrimination laws for making this a race-based policy, but there has been talk, as Kate said, of extending the welfare provisions to non-indigenous parents as well. But basically it just has to have the effect of convincing voters over the next six months that Howard is the man with vision and leadership, and after it helps him win the election the more contentious (or expensive) bits of it will probably be quietly found to be impossible to implement…
Cara:
Until 1967 the native population fell under the jurisdiction of the “The Department of Native Flora, Fauna and Aborigines” when a referendum finally granted them official human status and the ability to vote.
(Nice, concise summation of the crap that goes in our society. I’m always frustrated into incoherence when trying to explain.)
Kooris suffer the double whammy of racism AND the (these days, not-so) invisible classism of Australian culture. It’s horrifying.
As an Australian this has me quite angry. As do many of the things the Howard government does. During my degree my child psychology lecturer talked a lot about cultural contexts, and one thing she was very firm on is that the problems faced by the Aboriginal community (alcohol abuse, unemployment, higher mortality, child sexual abuse) are not unique but are common to all displaced peoples in similar situations throughout the world. Howard, as usual, is content to throw money at a problem and make a public stand, and as usual is treating the symptoms, not the cause. It’s the same mentality that tries to kill terrorists instead of taking away a reason for hatred of the west and it plays right into the lowest common denominator.
Another thing my child psychology lecturer said; based on the situation that the Aboriginal communities are left in, the real question is not “Why do so many of them develop badly?” but rather “How is it that any of them manage to be successful?”. The cards are truly stacked against them.
Everyone:
This report was thorough and it was shocking …. as were dozens of other reprts into the condition of Aboriginal Australians.
The response to the report was far from thorough but it was equally shocking. It was nothing but a pre-election stunt from a regime that, in the eleven years since returning to power, has done so little for Aborigines except chuck money at “the problem” and work hard to reimpose the bad old system and to re-steal Aboriginal land from Aborigines. As for protecting the dear little kiddies …. what hypocrisy!!! They’ve had ELEVEN YEARS to protect the dear little kiddies.
Bruce/Crablaw and akshelby:
Yes. There are a lot of similarities (and a few differences) with the situation for Native Americans. Australia does not have the equivalent of American Blacks – though the treatment of Irish Catholics and of English political prisoners during the Convict Era was so appalling; and later, the treatment of South Sea Islander indentured workers in the 19th Century was a blot on our history too.
[...] edical examination for all children. The topic is getting traction in overseas blogs like Feministe and Echid [...]
[...] medical examination for all children. The topic is getting traction in overseas blogs like Feministe and Echidne of the Snakes [...]
Firstly, a couple of important points to note:
1) It’s a Federal election year here in Australia. We are legally obliged to have an election by the end of November this year.
2) The Howard Liberal government has spent most of the past six months trailing at the polls behind the opposition Labor party.
There’s one more thing which has to be taken into consideration, and that is that the reason this is being tried out in the Northern Territory is due to a weird little political wrinkle in the Australian constitution regarding the rights of the States and the Commonwealth. While problems with Aboriginal health and welfare are pretty much similar across Australia, the Federal government only has powers of direct intervention in these matters within the territories (the ACT and the Northern Territory) since health, schooling and child welfare are issues which the states are internally responsible for.
As stated by Helen at comment 4, this is an election wedge issue. The Howard government can take a fair whack of credit for things having got so bad since the mid-1990s. Since coming to power, the Howard government has dismantled ATSIC (the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission – a sort of indigenous governing body which was responsible for distributing federal funds to Aboriginal communities and projects), introduced tighter restrictions on welfare eligibility (as well as compulsory activity testing), rolled back a lot of land rights decisions which had been made in the 1980s (including the Wik decision, which effectively recognised native title and the existence of the Aboriginal peoples as effective owners of the land prior to January 1788), and generally worked very hard to ensure that the aboriginal people were put back in what he considers to be their place.
Greta Christina (comment 9) – Australia does have a constitution. We’re different to the UK in that regard. Our constitution is a very long and long-winded document, with large chunks dealling with things like what the Governor-General can and can’t do, what the Prime Minister can and can’t do, and what the Federal government has responsibility over. This last is important, since, as I stated above, Aboriginal health, schooling, child welfare and soforth are *NOT* on the list of things that the Federal government has control over – generally this is left to the states, and the various State governments (most of which are currently led by the Labor party) strongly resent *any* Federal interference in their business.
The Howard government has shown itself quite willing to use (and abuse) its powers over the territories throughout its history. They quashed a move by the NT to allow voluntary euthenasia, and they quashed a move by the ACT to allow civil unions for same-sex partnerships. This is just the latest example in the trend – and it wouldn’t have happened if there’d been a Liberal state government for them to force the notion on…
PS: Aphie, not all Aboriginals are Koori. The Koori are a group of tribes in the areas currently occupied by most of Victoria. In Queensland, the dominant tribe is the Murri, while in South-Western Australia, it’s the Nyoongar. The Pitdjandjara are the main tribe in the central regions of Australia. Using “Koori” as a collective noun for the Aboriginal peoples is rather like using “Sioux” as a collective noun for the Native American peoples. (This is my nitpicking… feel free to add salt).
Greta Christina: We do have a constitution. We don’t have a Bill of Rights.
And while right now it’s not technically legal to make laws to cover one racial group, I’m sure he can get around it. We Indigenous Aussies have, as mentioned above, only been citizens since 1968. To put it in context, that’s within the lives of my siblings.
But, y’know, we’re supposed to be past that by now. Despite the fact that the only thing the Howard government has done to help is advise us in politico speech to toughen the fuck up.
Meg: The Koori nation actually covers most of NSW as well as Victoria. It’s the biggest nation in Indigenous Australia. The Northern Territory is Yolngu country. And that’s just MY nitpicking, because Koori country is my nation. *smile*
The distinction between the nations is something the government refuses to take onboard, despite constantly being advised to by Indigenous authorities. They insist on treating us like, and promoting the belief that, we’re all the same. We’ve both left out Torres Strait Islanders, too… something that annoys them, as they don’t even consider themselves Indigenous Australian.
I am from Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory.
The most important thing to realise is that this is an election year and the Prime Minister is miles behind in the opinion polls. He has tried every trick in the book to close the gap with the Opposition party. This Invasion of Aboriginal communities with a paternalistic moralistic crusade is purely an election stunt – to win votes – the emotive issue of doing good for abused aboriginal children.
The Prime Minister, Mr Howard was in fact well aware of the problem. A senior Aboriginal leader spoke to him face to face 5 years ago and told Mr Howard that there was endemic child sexual abuse across Northern Territory aboriginal communities and, asked for help to fix the problem. The Aboriginal leader said the Prime Minister simply ignored her and the issue. Mr Howard’s sudden crusade because of his ‘shock and horror’ is simply a cynical act – he has known all along, and ignored it.
Most Aborginal Communities are ‘dry’ no alcohol at the behest of elders. So the baning of alcohol is problematic. There may be black market alcohol and drugs causing problems – so that would be a simple policing issue. Scraping the permit entry system just makes it easier for smugglers, it is counter intuitive and really indicates that Howard’s intentions are not what he says.
It is important to understand the ideology of Mr Howard. He was a man that once wanted to abolish the minimum wage. He is closest to Margret Thatcher and GW Bush in that he and his cabinet are extreme right and Christian to go with it. So they have this sense of hardline right-wing moral superiority over everybody and everything. These people are often intimidating, aggressive and threatening.
His plan for these communities is quite obviously short term – 6 months, until the election and almost no thought has gone into providing solutions at the systemic level that involve Aboriginals. Which is madness. These types of problems are not solved by grandstanding, authoritarian, moralistic, bombastic crusades.
There are only two plus sides to this 1. it should for a while halt any continuing abuse, whilst there is a continual police presence 2. is raises the issue to the forefront of the nation. And thank God the Opposition leader has taken up the issue and suggested an national ‘war cabinet’ thus making an issue of national importance with national input [the Howard govt in making their plan did so in secret and consulted almost nobody, except maybe their notes from the 1950s].
If Mr Howard wins the election you can be sure his plan is to move Aboriginals out of communities into gerneral town/city society freeing up their resource rich land for mining.
But above all this exercise has been a desperate atempt to buy votes. Mr Howard’s govt and big business are in a frenzy that they cant close the gap in the polls. These people will go to any extremes to win this election.
Mr Howard’s Industrial Relation laws, brought in 14 months ago – also breach fundamental human rights and were instituted without warning. Big Business love them because they all rights away from the individual – they are ironically called WorkChoices.
The debate in Australia is stifled by the fact that criticising the governments plans simply gets you accused of not caring about child abuse.
However 3rd parties can criticise the governments actions – foreign groups and organisations can buy into the Australian debate and lambaste these paternalistic and unproductive actions.
So any out there that has connections with human rights organisations etc etc… please encourage them to analysis and join the debate ASAP.
I’m . . . confused. I’m sure at least SOME folks – on and off the rez – know who these pedophiles are, so why am I not reading about any arrests? Why is there not police protection or at least a security guard at the front and back gates of these indigenous communities, controlling acess and taking notes of who comes and goes?
Is it me, or am I just stupid?