Crikey

One important issue identified by the Wild/Anderson report Little Children Are Sacred runs a very real risk of being lost in the rush to apportion blame  – the role of non-indigenous offenders. 

The perception that child s-xual abuse in the NT is a crime committed only by Aboriginal men is wrong. Co-author of the report, Rex Wild, QC, noted this in his answer to a question at the press conference following the launch of the report:

LINDSAY MURDOCH - The Age: And who are the abusers? If there is no paedophile ring who are they?

REX WILD QC: …The worst examples of abuse of Aboriginal children is (sic) from non-Aboriginal men. There are a number of recorded cases of those in the Northern Territory over the past 20-odd years. Not all of them have been successfully prosecuted … 

The report elaborates on this aspect of child abuse in the Northern Territory and identifies and explodes a number of myths, including that Aboriginal men are the only offenders.

Myth: Aboriginal men are the only offenders …It is the Inquiry’s experience that the s-xual abuse of Aboriginal children is being committed by a range of non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal offenders …The Inquiry…remains concerned that, at times, Aboriginal men have been targeted as if they were the only perpetrators of child s-xual abuse in communities. This is inaccurate and has resulted in unfair shaming, and consequent further disempowerment, of Aboriginal men as a whole. (Report, p. 59)

…the Inquiry found no evidence of any “p-edophile rings” operating in the Northern Territory, there was enough evidence to conclude that a number of individual non-Aboriginal “p-edophiles” had been infiltrating Aboriginal communities and offending against children …As is often the case, these offenders appeared to have offended against many victims. However, they…often held positions of influence or trust in a community rather than being a “stranger”. (Report, p. 63)

The report goes on to note several cases where allegations of long-term abuse by non-indigenous offenders, most in positions of trust and authority, have been investigated and prosecuted with varying degrees of success, noting that evidential issues and vulnerable child witnesses present substantial difficulties to successful prosecutions.

I have my own experience with the difficulties of investigating child s-xual assaults. In the late nineties, I was an articled clerk at a Darwin legal practice with a broad Aboriginal clientele. We were asked to investigate and advise on the likelihood of civil claims on behalf of a number of young boys from two communities who had allegedly been s-xually abused by non-indigenous teachers, one a member of a religious order, the other working in a government school.

Investigation of the first matter was difficult, not only because of the central and long-standing role of the religious order in the social fabric of the community but also because many in the community were of the view that similar abuse had been going on, and protected by the order, for generations. As Broken Rites , a group dedicated to helping the victims of church-related abuse notes, claims for civil liability against churches and religious orders face substantial hurdles:

These damages claims are not easy. Generally, the church’s lawyers put up a fierce fight, although many such claims have resulted in an acceptable settlement. If a settlement of this kind is made, it is done “out-of-court” — because the church wants to avoid ending up in court.

The second matter was equally difficult. A criminal prosecution was launched but failed to proceed past the initial committal stage, mainly due to difficulties with the evidence from the juvenile victims. Due to the failure of the criminal prosecution, it was decided that any civil action had a very low likelihood of success and thus was abandoned.

Both of these matters devastated the victims and their communities. Whether the victims will follow the well-worn path to themselves becoming offenders and whether any further light will be concentrated on the role of non-indigenous s-xual abusers of children in the NT remains to be seen.

Wild and Anderson should be congratulated for comprehensively examining the nature and extent of child s-xual abuse in the NT, but they have failed to adequately address the issues of non-indigenous offending by not recommending, for example, a ‘cold-case’ review of past institutional child-s-x allegations and unsuccessful prosecutions, and whether, at least in some circumstances, the statute of limitations for the prosecution of child s-x offences be waived or modified. Additionally, substantial resources could be provided for the investigation of civil claims by victims against alleged offenders that may have slipped through the prosecutorial net.

Both the Northern Territory and Commonwealth governments will be judged by their responses to this report.