Australia takes drastic action on Aboriginal child abuse

Jun 21, 2007, 5:47 GMT

Sydney - The Australian government Thursday announced drastic measures to tackle the sexual abuse of children catalogued in a recent report on Aboriginal communities in the far north of the continent.

They include a six-month moratorium on the sale of alcohol in remote Aboriginal communities and the drafting in of police officers from outside the Northern Territory.

Howard said parents who continued to refuse to send their children to school would have their welfare payments docked. All Aboriginal children under 16 would undergo a medical examination and a permit system that kept journalists out of Aboriginal communities would be scrapped.

'We are dealing with children of the tenderest age who have been exposed to the most terrible abuse from the time of their birth virtually,' Howard told Parliament. 'Any semblance of maintaining the innocence of childhood is a myth in so many of these communities and we feel very strongly that action of this kind is needed.'

The report handed to the Northern Territory government earlier this month noted that child sexual abuse was evident in all 45 Aboriginal communities in far-north Australia that inspectors visited.

'This is a national disgrace, it's a disaster, and it's something that should never happen in this country,' Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough said when commenting on the report. 'We should all find it absolutely abhorrent and should be doing everything in our power to fix it.'

Around 500,000 of the 20 million Australians identify themselves as Aborigines. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than other Australians. Suicides are twice the national rate, murders are six times as high and they are 11 times more likely to be imprisoned than other Australians.

Sixty per cent of Aboriginal children don't finish high school and only 12 per cent go on to some form of higher education.

The Northern Territory has around 70,000 Aborigines. What Howard has promised will override the powers of the Northern Territory government.

Howard was unapologetic, asking: 'What matters more - the Constitutional niceties or the care and protection of young children?'