2007
| Author | Howard-Wagner, Deirdre |
|---|---|
| Date | Nov, 2007 |
| Source/Publisher | Current Issues in Criminal Justice, 19(2), pp243-251 |
| Link(s) | http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/journals/CICrimJust/2007/32.pdf |
| Subjects | Government policy, Social conditions |
The findings and recommendations of a body of Indigenous scholarship which indicated that violence and child sexual abuse had long existed within Indigenous communities, was reinforced through the release of the ‘Little Children are Sacred’ Report of the Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse in the Northern Territory in 2007. The scholarship identified the multi-faceted factors contributing to violence and child sexual abuse in Indigenous communities, and a range of community-based measures for overcoming violence and child sexual abuse. However, the Federal Government’s emergency response to violence and child sexual abuse has ignored this scholarship and the report’s recommendations, choosing instead to treat violence and child sexual abuse as symptomatic of the breakdown of social order associated with past government policies of welfare and autonomy initiated in the early 1970s. This comment argues that this legislation, largely aimed at addressing passive welfare and creating viable economies within Indigenous communities, fails to address the problems and effects of violence and child sexual abuse. (Abstract, edited.)
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