bipacsa_final_report

2. Reforming the response to child sexual abuse in
Aboriginal communities
Best practice responses and solutions to Aboriginal
family violence, and particularly Aboriginal sexual abuse,
are difficult to find due to a dearth of programs and the
lack of documented evaluations about the effectiveness
of such programs. The many reports on the problems
within Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities
conclude that the general failure to find solutions is
exacerbated by a significant lack of resources, an ongoing
paternalistic approach towards Indigenous people
and a reluctance to address the problem. The latter
results, in part, from Indigenous peoples‘ mistrust of the
government, and government uncertainty about what
should be done (Stanley et al 2003).
A number of broad principles for reform are repeatedly
identified in the literature. They include the need for major
policy change to give power and decision-making back to
the Indigenous community, a broad set of principles that
underpin good practice while acknowledging the need for
adequate financial resources to enable change, and the
need for ongoing partnerships between professionals and
the community.
2.1 Key reform events
Despite a number of government inquiries into the
response to child abuse and neglect and child protection
reform, few attempts have been made to explicitly
target child sexual abuse, and more specifically, sexual
abuse in Aboriginal communities. Those that have been
undertaken can be seen as predominantly non-Aboriginal
attempts to address issues of abuse and violence in
Aboriginal families and communities.
Parliamentary Crime Prevention Committee 1995
(Victoria)
In 1995, the Parliamentary Crime Prevention Committee
published a report that presented their recommendations
for increasing the effectiveness of the State’s response
to child sexual assault. The committee examined the
Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle “Little Children are Sacred”
roles of child protection services, the police and the legal
system. One of its more important recommendations
was that multi-disciplinary Sexual Assault Response
Teams (SARTS) should be established. The teams would
be led by specialist personnel from the Police and child
protection services, and supported by medical and
specialist counselling personnel. Although the Victorian
Government chose not to adopt the key recommendations
of the report, such a model has implications for recent
attempts to better integrate the Territory’s response to
child sexual abuse. 11
Gordon Inquiry 2002 (Western Australia)
The Gordon Inquiry has been perhaps the best known
and largest inquiry into sexual abuse in Aboriginal
communities (Gordon, Hallahan & Henry 2002). Headed
by Magistrate Sue Gordon, the Inquiry examined the
responses by government agencies to complaints of family
violence and child abuse in Aboriginal communities. It
followed a Coroner’s Inquest into the death of a 15-
year-old girl in the Swan Valley Nyoongar Community
in Perth. The Gordon Inquiry made 197 findings and
recommendations in its report, entitled Putting the Picture
Together: Inquiry into Response by Government Agencies
to Complaints of Family Violence and Child Abuse in
Aboriginal Communities.
Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault Taskforce 2006
(New South Wales)
We have already referred to the establishment of the
NSW Attorney-General’s Aboriginal Child Sexual Assault
Taskforce in July 2004 to examine the incidence of child
sexual assault in Aboriginal communities, and to review
the effectiveness of government service responses to this
issue. The taskforce’s report, Breaking the Silence: Creating
11 Twelve years after the Crime Prevention Committee Report, it was
reported in April 2006 that Victoria has developed a variation of
the ‘SART” team to be employed in a number of regions – the new
model also incorporated DPP prosecutorial staff.