The world is full of long reports about issues that interest me but unfortunately I don’t have time to read them all. Not every blog comment that points out the shortcomings in data is a snide attempt to discredit the main message. Sometimes a request for better evidence is exactly that, no more and no less.

The report looks at the rates of child abuse for Aboriginals and non-aboriginals and found little difference.

Indeed in media interviews and in the report as I quoted they did not se it as their job to get the evidence.

We have had over 11,000 children looked at yet no arrests. given that there was supposed to be systematic child abuse this is amazing.

The Wild report simply adopted the research capabilities of the Bringing them Home report.

The Little Children Are Sacred report is hardly an obscure source for me to have assumed familiarity on the part of someone commenting on this topic. Nevertheless, having read and considered the evidence, I see you’re prepared to alter your position, something not many people seem to manage for some reason. It’s greatly to your credit. Certainly it conclusively indicates that my snide comparison with climate change denialists like Blair and Bolt was unfair. Both of them are completely impervious to evidence or rational argument.

I found them a repugnant example of denialism.

Then perhaps you would do well to read what I actually wrote instead of making wild assumptions about my beliefs. What I wrote was not ambiguous and required no ‘interpretation’. I thought the “Aaaahh I can tell what you really think and what kind of person you are” school of blogging was absent from Troppo, but apparently not.

My comment sought some hard data, such as is found here</ According to that source, ‘the notification rate of gonorrhoea for Indigenous people living in WA, SA and the NT in 2003 was’ 48 times that for non-indigenous Australians. The figures for other STIs were equally horrifying. It is therefore intuitively likely that rates for children will also be many times higher. The question is whether they are proportionately higher, or disproportionately; if it is the latter, it suggests above average incidence of sexual abuse.

The question is answered, at least for NT, in the passage you have cited from the ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ report. Why you could not have cited it in the first place without a spray of nonsense about denialism and ‘lefty experts’ and global warming is beyond me.

On no view do the passages you cite suggest that Wild and Anderson are asserting that sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in the NT is higher than sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in other parts of Australia. By what means do you derive such a meaning from the passage you’ve quoted?

Ken

Others can read your words and interpret them as they will. I found them a repugnant example of denialism. The same might be true of Homer, if I could actually work out what he’s trying to say.

In the time available, the inquiry has preferred to concentrate on what is perceived to be the real task- prevention of sexual abuse, rather than historical cataloguing and statistical analysis of precise incidents’

page 242

It is interesting ( and concerning) to note that the present number of substantiated (TPS: indigenous and non-indigenous) cases labelled as sexual abuse in the Territory has been consistently been below 50 cases since 1997-98- despite increased awareness of the issues.
the low proportion of substantiated cases may be due to:
- a generally low prevalence of sexual abuse in Australian communities ( which this Inquiry would dispute_
- a reluctance to report
- difficulties in obtaining concrete evidence of sexual abuse which limits the number of both indigenous and non-indigenous cases that are able to be substantiated.

Seems to me Ken you are in a lot of trouble

Similarly with page 242. It deals with several matters but again contains no statement or implication that NT abuse rates of indigenous kids are higher than abuse rates of indigenous kids in other parts of Australia. In fact a statement on page 242 is fairly clearly inconsistent with your claim (see words in bold):

The proportion of substantiated cases of sexual abuse has consistently been between 5% (2005-06) and 8% (2001-02) of all substantiations (25 of 464 in 2005-06). In regards to cases involving Indigenous children, 4% (15 of 356) of all substantiations in 2005-06 were classified as sexual abuse. Sexual abuse cases make up similar proportions in other jurisdictions (AIHW 2007a) (with the exception of West Australia) where 16% of Indigenous cases were classified as sexual abuse in 2005-06.

The comparison always was with the rest of Australia.”

Err, care to give me a page reference Homer? The section of Little Children Are Sacred dealing with the extent of child sexual abuse starts at page 234 for those interested in checking for themselves. It cites a variety of types of data to make the case that the incidence of sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in the NT is significantly higher than for the general community. It doesn’t at any point assert, suggest or imply that the rate of sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in the NT is greater than that of Aboriginal children in other states/territories. Indeed the citing of the Gordon report (WA) and several other studies indicates at least implicitly that Wild and Anderson accept that this is not a problem unique to the NT.

As for your suggestion that Wild and Anderson relied on “hearsay and anecdotes”, in fact they cited detailed statistics on STDs, earlier research both in Australia and overseas, age of mothers at birth, child protection data (children at risk and neglected), sexual abuse notifications (including stats on FACS investigations and outcomes), care and protection orders made by courts, foster placements and criminal justice statistics. If you think they relied only on “hearsay and anecdotes” it rather suggests that it’s you who hasn’t read the report properly.

For those who don’t have the time or interest to check for themselves, here is the most salient passage in relation to comparative STD/STI rates:

The NT Centre for Disease Control (CDC) provided sexually transmitted infection (STI) data in children in the Territory for 2000-2005. This indicated that the per capita rate of STI infection among all Aboriginal people is between seven and 30 times greater than for non-Aboriginal people (additional information from DHCS, received 28 August 2006).

From 2001-2005, of all STIs diagnosed in Aboriginal people, 8% occurred in children under the age of 16 years compared with 3.2% for non-Aboriginal children. STIs are statistically more likely to be found in Aboriginal children. In actual terms, the number of STIs in young people in Alice Springs (particularly Alice-Rural) is particularly high, reflecting the high number of young Aboriginal people living in the region (see Figure 2 below).

From 2001-2005, an STD was identified in 64 children aged under 12 years. Some 54 of these children were identified as Aboriginal, five were identified as non- Aboriginal and the cultural identity for another five was not reported. The figures represented 0.3% of all Aboriginal and 0.15% of all non- Aboriginal STI cases.

I should also note that the STI rate for 12 and 13 year old Aboriginal kids is much higher than for those under 12. Thus, as I noted earlier there were 62 such notifications in 207 and more the previous year. Typically the rate of STIs for 14 and 15 year olds (still under the legal age of consent) is around 200 or more per year. As Wild and Anderson note:

On the basis of the available data, NT sexual health practitioners have developed the view that sexual activity:
in a person under 12 years is highly likely to indicate abuse
in a person aged 12-13 years is a grey area requiring close examination of the situation
in a person 14 years or older is often consensual in nature, but may still indicate abuse (additional information from DHCS, received 28 August 2006).

You are bypassing the key agents who demanded the Intervention in the first place; Aboriginal people, particularly women. I’m not sure how impressed they would be by white city bourgeois folk demanding an assessment of the rest of Australia – which does not choose to isolate itself from the rest of the community out the back of nowhere – before responding to the cries from those isolated communities themselves.

The comparison always was with the rest of Australia.

Like the Wild report you are relying on hearsay and anecdotes for evidence.

I am afraid that just isn’t good enough

To the best of my knowledge no-one has claimed that chuild sexual abuse is worse in NT Aboriginal communities than in Aboriginal communities in the rest of Australia. It isn’t. In fact I said precisely that in the primary post above. The reason Howard and brough singled out the NT was because they had the constitutional power, not because the NT situation was unique. However, if you’re suggesting that child sexual abuse is no greater in the Aboriginal community than in the general/non-indigenous community, you’re talking nonsense.

I am not saying child abuse is not happening but I want some EVIDENCE that it is far worse in N/T than elsewhere before I would intervene in a community.

Can you imagine the hue and cry that would happen if allegations of widespread child abuse occured in Sydney purely on what people alleged nd the absence of any evidence at all?

I think not, because:
– our problem is of a much smaller scale;
– I don’t believe that the Australian community has anywhere near western and eastern european levels of racism and resentment; and
– I don’t think our governments are as disposed to happy-happ-joy-joy beureaucratic nonsense as the EU and many of its constituent governments are.

But the Economist’s conclusion is sobering:
Such hopeful nibbles abound. But even an optimist would have to concede that Europe’s biggest social problem will persist for the lifetime of anyone reading this article, and probably far longer.

Do you drag everyone under 12 off to state care in Darwin, if so for how long, 2 years, 5 years 10 years?

If the abuse is perpetrated by 15 year olds on 11 years old – do you drag both perpetrator and victim off to Darwin for 2 , 3, 4 years – if so what then?

I want it to stop today like everyone else but wishing for something doesn’t make it happen.

The Report actually says itself that child abuse in the N/T is similar to other parts of Australia.

However they then resort to hearsay and anecdotes to assert why chill abuse in worse in the N/T.

you appear to be travelling a similar path.

Child abuse is almost always under-reported anywhere. That is the nature of the beast.

the intervention has resulted in no increase in the number of referrals to child protection authorities and no charges having been laid? if there is widespread child abuse then this is very curious

I was just pointing out that despite my reservations there was (is/could be) some interventions, generally not primary care, that were short, sharp, one off and effective and that these could and should be quantified.

Yes, Ken Lovell’s statement is absurd and an example of denialism every bit as noxious and potentially dangerous as the RWDBs’ behaviour on global warming etc. Chris Graham of the National Indigenous Times makes similar assertions, seemingly because he believes that admitting that child sexual absue really IS vastly higher in indigenous communities that in the general community would somehow unleash a tide of racism. But denying that a problem exists is itself an even more dangerous form of racism because it would leave a horrifying problem unaddressed.

If you doubt the extent of the problem, read this study by Bowden and Fethers or this Oz article about the Australian Crime Commission’s efforts to uncover child sexual abuse or indeed Little Children Are Sacred. Anyone who actually lives in or works closely with remote indigenous communities, as opposed to armchair “down south” lefty experts, knows the extent of the problem. Nanette Rogers’ MSM whistleblowing was long overdue. The Ken Lovells of this world should be ignored as they deserve. Moreover, contrary to his view that “figures cited of the incidence of STDs hardly suggest a rampant epidemic”, 62 diagnosed STD infections among children under 14 in a quite small NT indigenous population does in fact indicate a rampant epidemic. Here’s what the experts Bowden and Fethers say:

STI rates in Indigenous communities are orders of magnitude higher than in non-Indigenous communities. Surveys in remote communities have shown that up to one in four women have an STI (one or more of chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis or trichomoniasis).2-4 In some Indigenous populations, STIs are so common that many medical newcomers find it hard to believe that the diagnostic tests they are using are accurate, or worse, that diseases of such endemic prevalence are regarded as normal for the group. …

I’m certainly not denying that direct statistical/quantified research is needed, and I understand that is one of the ACC’s tasks. But child STD rates aren’t a bad proxy in the meantime. They show, like pretty well all other data, that this is a massive problem. As the Oz story noted:

Australian Crime Commission chief executive Alistair Milroy says the National Indigenous Violence and Child Abuse Intelligence Task Force, which in February acquired star-chamber powers, has discovered high levels of under-reporting of abuse. “Intimidation, fear and threat of retribution is a key cause of under-reporting,” Milroy says. “If you live in a small community and disclose abuse, there is the real possibility of retribution from the offender’s family, from your own family or from your community.”

The problem with all this is that similar observations could be made about numerous other communities in Australia – perhaps of ALL communities

For some reason that doesn’t ring true. Can’t think why.

If you want a pessimistic outlook on our chances, read this report on Europe’s success improving the lot of its Roma communities:

Fully 11 billion ($17 billion) is available from the EU’s social fund, with a further 23 billion earmarked from the regional development fund in coming years.

Yet the main effect so far has been to create a well-paid elite of Roma lobbying outfits, fluent in bureaucratic jargon, adept at organising seminars and conferences and nobbling decision-makers. It has had little effect on the lives of the Roma themselves.

I hope we can do better.

The initial reason for the intervention has been forgotten.

Not surprised the Wild Report had as much credibility and did as much credible research as the Bringing them home report.

He said there instances of child sexual abuse including sodomy and rape, while a high number of sexual assaults, pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections had been reported among children under the age of consent. Intelligence had also confirmed examples of child sex offenders working with children in indigenous communities.

Mr Milroy said children had been gang-raped by teenagers but the crimes were not reported by the victims for fear of retribution.

The taskforce found a high level of sexualised activity and behaviour has been demonstrated by children, including seven-year-olds experimenting with sex and sex toys.

Intelligence also suggested that children as young as seven were actively using alcohol and drugs such as marijuana, or passively smoking the cannabis used by their parents.

The problem with all this is that similar observations could be made about numerous other communities in Australia – perhaps of ALL communities. The statements are exceptionally vague – what is a ‘high’ level, for instance? High in absolute terms or high compared to some benchmark and if so what? And of course intelligence can confirm ‘examples’ of something – it would be remarkable if it couldn’t.

I can’t find any primary data on the Crime Commission site. Maybe it’s published elsewhere but if not, it’s completely unsatisfactory to have to rely on the interpretation of one person who may have a personal interest in presenting the issues in a certain way.

All this is not to downplay the importance of indigenous child abuse, but surely if there was truly a ‘national emergency’ someone should be gathering and publishing comprehensive data? The figures cited of the incidence of STDs hardly suggest a rampant epidemic and as I say, I’d be interested to know how they compare on a per capita basis with the population generally and with other equivalent socio-economic groups in particular.