Broadcast: 3/09/01
For Shame
Reporter Liz Jackson finds Aboriginal women and children have a low premium in a system that offers them little protection but affords leniency to their abusers.

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Reporter: Liz Jackson
Producer: Virginia Moncrieff

LIZ JACKSON: In the remote community at the base of Uluru, a nine-year-old girl drew a picture which told a story for a friend.

DAISY WARD, NPY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SERVICE: This picture is about this one little girl, and she said this man went for kangaroo, looking for kangaroo.

But he couldn't find any kangaroo.

So the man was angry, came back home.

He speared his wife, and she was bleeding.

Look at this poor woman bleeding.

And the man there, after he speared that woman, he's happy standing, instead of helping her, and she's there bleeding.

The red thing is the blood.

LIZ JACKSON: Do you know if that girl had herself seen violence in her family?

Yeah.

The mother.

The mother -- she's one of our clients.

You see, she go through domestic violence.

She have her arm broken, her head cut, her face bruised, all swollen.

Here, another arm broken.

She gets stabbed.

That's this girl's mother.

LIZ JACKSON: Back in 1983, before I was a journalist, I had a job giving legal advice on domestic violence.

Now, the vast, vast majority of the women who sought advice were white, but I clearly remember one workshop in regional Australia where, at the back of the room, there were about five or six Aboriginal women.

At the end, they came up and said to me, "Well, what can you do for us?

I mean, you're saying, call the police.

You're saying we can lay charges.

But after years, we've only just succeeded in stopping the police busting into our community, and our men won't let us call them back."

I couldn't really think of what to say, and it seemed like a bit of a cop-out at the time, but I said, "Well, that's for your community to sort that out."

20 years later when I come back to the story, the reports have been written, some services and some shelters have been provided.

But the situation for Aboriginal women like that isn't better, it's worse.

The situation now is that young Aboriginal women are 15 times more likely than other women to be hospitalised as a result of violence, 10 times more likely to die from domestic assaults.

And in tonight's story, we reveal shocking levels of sexual abuse of children.

PETER YU, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, KIMBERLEY LAND COUNCIL 1993-2001: There is a very dark side to this country that we continue to hide up and say, "She'll be right, mate."

That's absolute crap, because it won't be right, and people need to bring these things out in the open.

DAVID ROSS, CHAIRMAN, CENTRAL LAND COUNCIL: Of course it's a shame job.

It's embarrassing.

Of course it's embarrassing.

But so bloody what?

At the end of the day, you have to say, "So what?"

"So bloody what?"

Because everyone else is doing it.

Get it out on the table.

PATRICK DODSON, CHAIRMAN ABORIGINAL RECONCILIATION COUNCIL 1991-97: Well, what's at stake is the survival of Aboriginal people.

The survival of the indigenous people of this country is at stake.

LIZ JACKSON: Tonight on Four Corners, confronting the shame.

It's the Kimberley rodeo in Halls Creek, in the far north of Western Australia.

There are no international or interstate celebrities -- that's the way the locals like it.

70 per cent of the population is Aboriginal, and people have come from townships and remote communities all around the Kimberleys.

For many of the older men, it's a reminder of the days back in the 1950s when Aboriginal stockmen were the backbone of the cattle industry across the Top End of Australia.

But that era came to an end in 1968, when Aboriginal stockmen won the right to equal pay.

Rather than pay them properly, the pastoralists simply laid them off.

PETER YU: Most Aboriginal people would've been employed, even though they weren't getting paid proper wages.

There were certain roles, like in any society -- cultural roles and authority and respect.

PAT DODSON: Most of them had been very hard-working men, um -- who knew their job and knew the ringing game back-to-front, but then nothing was done to assist them.

LIZ JACKSON: Around these parts, it's become symbolic of the way recent history has undermined the pride and authority traditionally enjoyed by Aboriginal men.

Now, as in so many other parts of Australia, at least 70 per cent of Aborigines are unemployed or work for the dole.

There's plenty of time to drink, and being drunk, it seems, is no impediment to drinking even more.

The Halls Creek Hotel has recently been charged with selling grog to underage drinkers and to drunks.

WOMAN AT RODEO: Hi, baby!

My name is Lauren.

LIZ JACKSON: When the rodeo's on, the police step up their patrols, and call in reinforcements from the surrounding communities.

They tell us the most common and most serious crimes they deal with are domestic assaults -- men bashing their wives.

RODEO WOMAN: Gee I wish I was sitting on a horse, eh.

SERGEANT NEIL GORDON, HALLS CREEK POLICE: We get people turning up to the front door of the police station, you know, bleeding from the back of the head because they've been swiped over the back of the head.

Those people, you know, may get --

We take them across to the hospital and they may get flown out by the Royal Flying Doctor Service for treatment because of the injuries.

You know, they are so serious.

RODEO SONG: A simple kind of life never did me no harm Raising me a family and working on the farm --

LIZ JACKSON: It's around 8pm, and the partying and the good times have started down at the rodeo concert.

RODEO SONG: I've got me old fiddle When the sun's coming up I got cakes on the griddle Life ain't nothing but --

LIZ JACKSON: But it's a different scene over in the Halls Creek Safe House.

Already, four women have booked themselves in for the night.

The doors are locked, the house is behind high walls and the corridors are barred.

JENNIFER HERITAGE, HALLS CREEK SAFE HOUSE: What about you, Sarah Lee?

Are you going out for women's business?

LIZ JACKSON: Maggie and her daughter Sarah Lee have both been bashed before, and they're taking no chances.

With rodeo on, they know that there will be drinking.

You're still a bit scared when he drinks?

SARAH LEE: Yeah.

A little bit.

LIZ JACKSON: A little bit?

In case he does it again?

SARAH LEE: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: So when it's rodeo, do you know that he's going to drink because everybody drinks at rodeo?

SARAH LEE: Yeah.

Yeah.

They drink too much.

LIZ JACKSON: So, what, it's better to come here?

SARAH LEE: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: In case he gives you any trouble?

Did you used to see your mum and dad fight?

SARAH LEE: Yeah.

(Laughs) LIZ JACKSON: Yeah?

And when you were growing up, did you think that you'd get on with someone who'd fight with you as well?

SARAH LEE: Nah.

LIZ JACKSON: We're told 2,000 women and 3,000 children have slept here over the past year, but many are the same women over and over again.

JENNIFER HERITAGE: How old are you, Robina?

14?

LIZ JACKSON: Rosemary came in around 8:30.

She was here for one night a week ago, after her husband bashed her on the head.

The day after she left the safe house, he broke her arm.

Now she's back again.

JENNIFER HERITAGE: I'll bring you up some linen and that in a minute, alright, darling?

LIZ JACKSON: Jennifer Heritage is the manager of the safe house.

She's been here just on a year and is leaving next month.

Is it a hard place to work?

JENNIFER HERITAGE, HALLS CREEK SAFE HOUSE: No.

I wouldn't say it was a hard place to work.

I would say frustrating.

Frustrating more than hard.

Repeatedly the women are coming backwards and forwards to the safe house, and I'm guilty of going, "Oh -- again?"

You know?

JENNIFER HERITAGE (TO ROSEMARY): And that was from your husband?

ROSEMARY: Yeah.

JENNIFER HERITAGE: OK.

So why didn't you come back in?

ROSEMARY: I was too frightened.

JENNIFER HERITAGE: Too frightened?

ROSEMARY: Mmm.

JENNIFER HERITAGE: So, what, you stay out at family?

LIZ JACKSON: Rosemary is one of the women Jennifer calls a regular.

It's depressing to hear the safe house view that there's no way this will change -- that nothing can be done except patch up the wounds.

Has she ever pressed any sort of charges --

JENNIFER HERITAGE: No.

LIZ JACKSON: ..against her bloke?

JENNIFER HERITAGE: No.

LIZ JACKSON: No?

JENNIFER HERITAGE: No.

No.

And she won't.

LIZ JACKSON: The local Member of Parliament for the Halls Creek area was in the past herself in a violent relationship, in her case with a white man.

She knows it's hard.

CAROL MARTIN, STATE MP FOR THE KIMBERLEY: It's not that help's not offered.

It's not offered sometimes in a way that is, you know, acceptable or accessible, even, for them.

'Cause as I said to you before, this is all you know -- out there is really scary.

Out there is very scary.

LIZ JACKSON: By the end of the night, 17 women have sought refuge in the safe house.

One woman has been flown in from the remote Aboriginal community of Balgo, 300km away, in fear for her life.

In the past, her husband has burned her with a fire stick down one side of her body giving her second and third degree burns.

She has not pressed charges.

Is it particularly hard, do you think, for women in remote communities?

CAROL MARTIN: Of course.

Of course, because they're isolated, some of them are bound by cultural variables, um, some are sort of in a marriage that when they go for help, they're told, like, "Honour thy husband."

You know.

It's pretty sad.

LIZ JACKSON: One day later in Balgo.

The community is a former Catholic mission where control was handed back to Aboriginal people less than 20 years ago.

Around 400 people live here on the edge of the Tanami Desert.

It turns out it's common for women to be flown out of the community, as happened last night, but usually it's to Derby Hospital.

The local clinic treats the wounds and the burns, but the serious attacks and the broken bones are flown to Derby, an average of one a month.

A common weapon used is a star picket steel fencing post.

PATRICIA LEE, BALGO COMMUNITY ELDER: They use those star pickets and all sort of things, you know?

LIZ JACKSON: Patricia Lee is a community elder.

PATRICIA LEE: Those steel things, whatever's lying around, they just go for it, you know, because they are drunk and they use all their might.

They think they're hitting their wives slowly, but he don't know because he's drunk.

He's gonna keep beating up and later on, when he's sober, he'll think, "God, what did I do?"

What did I use?"

And then the wife end up in hospital.

DAVID BUMBLEBEE, BALGO COMMUNITY COUNCIL CHAIRMAN: It's not my problem.

It's a problem for other people.

LIZ JACKSON: David Bumblebee is the community council chairman.

But it's a problem for the community, and you're the chairman.

DAVID BUMBLEBEE: Sometime --

I'd rather not say that, really.

Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Balgo is supposed to be a dry community, but as the community chairman tells us, grog comes in every Wednesday when the police change over shifts.

DAVID BUMBLEBEE: When the police change over, and sometimes grog comes in when the police are --

..asleep, or maybe midnight or something, you know?

LIZ JACKSON: So when the police are asleep --

DAVID BUMBLEBEE: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: ..at midnight, or in the changeover between the shifts.

people know when the changeover is and that's when the grog comes in?

DAVID BUMBLEBEE: Yeah, sometimes that.

LIZ JACKSON: Boredom is a major problem in a community like Balgo, especially for the young men.

But today is a special day.

It's the annual sports carnival weekend, and the home team has made it into the grand final.

It's a chance for the boys to show off a bit and feel good about themselves, something that doesn't happen often enough in these young lives.

They're struggling to find role models that suit them.

But one of the Balgo Eagles won't be playing today.

Last week, his brother put an axe in his leg.

He's sitting out this game with friends.

You're normally in the team, are you?

JOSHUA, 20: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Right.

So what happened?

JOSHUA: He was drunk.

LIZ JACKSON: He was drunk?

JOSHUA: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: So, what, just had a go at you with the axe, did he?

JOSHUA: (Clears throat) LIZ JACKSON: Any of the fights over girls?

Maybe jealous?

GEORGE, 24: Um --

But the fight that happens about girls aren't really in public.

LIZ JACKSON: Where do they happen then?

GEORGE: At night.

Not during the day.

When I say public, like, where everyone can see, during the day.

But it happen at night, at the oval.

LIZ JACKSON: And is that -- what sort of fights happen at the oval?

GEORGE: Fists, weapons, weapons like sticks and star pickets and all that.

LIZ JACKSON: Do you think that women have to put up with a lot?

JOSHUA: Yeah.

GEORGE: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: So if you see a man fighting with a woman -- ?

GEORGE: Yeah, you just -- if it's your brother, you walk up and stop him.

Talk to him about it.

"Hey, what's going on?"

LIZ JACKSON: Mm-hm.

But if it's not your brother?

GEORGE: You just laugh and walk away.

LIZ JACKSON: 'Cause it's not your business, or -- ?

GEORGE: Yeah, not your business.

To other people's eyes, that'll be like me putting my nose where it doesn't belong.

LIZ JACKSON: What happens if you put your nose where it doesn't belong here?

GEORGE: I never do.

LIZ JACKSON: So do you think men who really hurt their wives should go to jail?

GEORGE: I don't know.

Hard to say.

You grow up around people who do that -- and you love them, you know.

And you see it happen to other people --

JOSHUA: I know my brother fight with his wife, but I just tell him, "Don't fight.

Sleep it off."

And he listens to me.

LIZ JACKSON: Your brother listens to you when you say that?

JOSHUA: Yeah.

Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: So you see it in your family?

JOSHUA: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Any of them really hurt their wives?

GEORGE: Not that much.

Like, really hurt, as in broken bones.

Or hospital.

No, just maybe punch in the face and kick in the ribs.

That's about it.

LIZ JACKSON: And you, Dwayne?

DWAYNE, 18: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Yeah?

In your family, yeah?

How does that make you feel when you see that?

DWAYNE: Stop them -- from fighting.

LIZ JACKSON: Can you?

DWAYNE: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: You're just a young bloke.

Can you stop people -- ?

You're talking, what, brothers or father, uncles, what are we talking?

DWAYNE: Brothers.

LIZ JACKSON: Brothers.

DWAYNE: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Older brothers, yeah?

And do they listen when you say to stop?

DWAYNE: Sometime.

LIZ JACKSON: Sometimes.

DWAYNE: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Do you think it's ever OK to hit a woman?

GEORGE: No.

To ever hit a woman?

No.

LIZ JACKSON: No circumstances?

GEORGE: No.

Well --

If there's a good reason to it.

If there's a good reason to it.

Like --

..a couple of years back, me and a couple of other fellas was in Broome prison, doing time.

One of -- one of the boys, his girlfriend was pregnant --

..by someone else.

And -- see, I think that's a good enough reason for punching a woman.

'Cause maybe she deserved it.

LIZ JACKSON: So that's a good enough reason, yeah?

GEORGE: Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Any other reason?

Any other thing?

GEORGE: Nah, I don't think so.

LIZ JACKSON: Despite adopting a passion for Aussie Rules football, there are still strong traditional aspects to life in Balgo.

These young men have all been through traditional initiation to become a man.

It's an important cultural ritual which gives them standing and authority.

The women tell us that once they're men, they think they can do whatever they like -- because they are the men.

That's the culture.

It's a sensitive issue.

Does traditional culture allow a man to use his authority to be violent to women?

Or is that just used as a convenient excuse?

PATRICK DODSON: Young men have got to learn that that's not the way you behave if you're an Aboriginal man.

LIZ JACKSON: Because they think that once they've been initiated and they've become a man that they have the right to treat women like that?

PATRICK DODSON: Well, they can believe what they like, but that's not the right thing to believe.

LIZ JACKSON: No, but do they take that -- ?

PATRICK DODSON: Well, I think they do.

And I think they're obviously abusing what is a tremendous responsibility.

And in the end, they'll be caught up with by our law in some circumstances, or they'll do things to people, they'll go too far in the abuse and the Western legal system will no doubt deal with them there.

But they'll still have to face the Aboriginal law because they've got responsibilities under that law.

DAVID ROSS: There is a lot of misuse of the term 'culture' in terms of "I can do this," under the guise of culture, under the guise of law.

And people do abuse certain levels of responsibility and certain levels of authority.

Yes.

LIZ JACKSON: There are no police in Balgo as the afternoon draws to a close.

The officer has been called back to Halls Creek to cope with the rodeo.

But even if a woman does end up hurt, we're told the chances are that she would hide it from the police because of fear of retribution.

PATRICIA LEE: They reckon that when the men find out, they wonder, "He might start doing something bad to me "if I tell the police."

LIZ JACKSON: So maybe if they tell the police, they get more of a hiding?

PATRICIA LEE: That's what they think.

LIZ JACKSON: It's hard to avoid the conclusion that there is no effective sanction to control the violence that women here endure.

In the darkest hour, the fear is that nothing will change.

PATRICK DODSON: If you want to destroy Aboriginal societies, continue --

And we're doing it ourselves by virtue of the violence and the drugs and the alcohol and the abuse of cultural knowledge and position.

If we continue to do that, then we don't need the Western society to destroy us.

They -- they've set the parameters within which we can do that.

And that's what will happen.

And that's a very depressing picture.

But thankfully, I know that there are many others who are fighting against that trend -- men and women -- to do something about these things.

LIZ JACKSON: Daisy Ward and Jane Lloyd work for the Ngaanyatjarra Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Women's Council Domestic Violence Project.

They see their job as backing women in whatever way will protect them from violence and over a period of years, if that's what it takes.

It doesn't always earn them friends.

Some of the men end up in jail.

DAISY WARD: But you can't see it, but the sign's still there.

JANE LLOYD: "Whore, whore, whore."

DAISY WARD: "Whore."

LIZ JACKSON: Someone has defaced the walls of their office down in Mutitjulu, the community at the base of Uluru.

The service covers all the remote communities in the cross-border regions of the Northern Territory, South Australia and Western Australia -- 350,000 square kilometres.

Between them, they know every family in their patch.

Jane Lloyd has been with the service for over seven years.

JANE LLOYD, NPY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE UNIT: And I would say in the communities that we're quite familiar with that in nearly all families, there are either victims and/or offenders involved in domestic violence.

They may be the mothers of clients or the sisters of clients or the mothers and sisters of the offenders.

In every family.

LIZ JACKSON: That's extraordinarily prevalent.

JANE LLOYD: It is.

When you say it like that, it's quite shocking, really.

LIZ JACKSON: Daisy Ward was one of Jane's first clients.

It took two and a half years of encouraging, supporting and protecting Daisy, pursuing her husband through the courts and in and out of jail, before he finally left her alone.

JANE LLOYD: Daisy's relationship was particularly violent.

And it was well known the level of violence that had been inflicted on her.

And you know, she had suffered numerous fractured limbs, you know.

There were firearms used.

There was, you know, an axe used.

It was very serious violence.

LIZ JACKSON: Did that go on for years?

DAISY WARD, NPY DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SERVICE: It did.

LIZ JACKSON: Were you frightened of him?

DAISY WARD: Yep.

JANE LLOYD: He was a very frightening man.

And he was a very smooth operator as well.

One example is when he came out of jail towards the end of their relationship, he returned to live at her community and he was elected council chairperson.

SONG PLAYS IN CAR: You've got to say I don't want to be with you It's time for you to leave --

LIZ JACKSON: Daisy now advises other women how to deal with their violent men.

SONG: Don't abuse my body please --

DAISY WARD: I just take them out somewhere bush and sit down and talk to the girl, tell her, "For your own safety, while you're still young -- you've got a long life yet.

You're not old enough to die yet.

But the way you're going, you're going down."

SONG: Women need to be strong inside --

LIZ JACKSON: Jane and Daisy are on their way to court.

The hearing concerns a former client of theirs, a 16-year-old girl who was bashed to death.

SONG: We got to stand up for our freedom --

LIZ JACKSON: They know the boy who's been charged with her murder.

His mother was also one of their clients, as are his sisters.

DAISY WARD: Little kids, you know, they see that and next time, they might think, "Oh, my family's too violent, "you know, my father's too violent."

Well, then they grow up, they start being violent.

NANETTE ROGERS, NORTHERN TERRITORY DPP: Now, you've told us that you went over to the council office.

LIZ JACKSON: The prosecutor from Alice Springs is questioning one of the witnesses.

NANETTE ROGERS: Did you hear the truck come back?

WITNESS: No.

NANETTE ROGERS: Alright.

LIZ JACKSON: Nanette Rogers used to work for the Aboriginal Legal Service.

She spent three years defending Aboriginal men, doing her best to keep them out of jail.

Now she's changed sides.

NANETTE ROGERS: I got tired of saying the same things in cases involving sexual assaults, stabbings, grievous harms and homicides.

I got sick of saying, "He was drunk.

"He thought she was consenting."

I got -- I really --

And I was -- I became, um --

On the one hand, I became inured to looking at the victims' injuries and so on.

But there -- but I really got sick of that, like, extraordinary violence, you know, like week after week after week.

I got sick of it and wanted to be --

..basically wanted to be on the other side and trying to channel my energies and enthusiasm into, um -- trying to, you know, bring to book those people responsible for those kind of -- that violence.

LIZ JACKSON: While the court takes a break at lunchtime, Jane takes a call on her satellite phone from the police in SA.

JANE LLOYD (ON PHONE): I mean, and this guy's just been pulled in for breaching his parole.

He's down there 'cause he's been in breach of parole.

He pleads guilty to an assault that is an assault, um --

..you know, he broke her leg -- oh --

LIZ JACKSON: A court has just released the husband of one of her clients on a suspended sentence and a good behaviour bond.

The man had previously served six months for slashing his wife's leg open with a knife in front of her class at school.

JANE LLOYD: Yeah -- it's not the one offence.

You know, he may be breaching the one condition, but he's breaching it on numerous occasions.

Oh, God.

Oh, well, that's great.

And how can we continue to try and engage women in taking this path and using the criminal justice system to protect themselves when it fails them -- when it just releases these blokes regardless.

JANE LLOYD: The sentences given out to Aboriginal men committing serious offences against Aboriginal women are much, much lower than sentences given to other people in the community who commit similar offences.

LIZ JACKSON: And what's the thinking?

JANE LLOYD: The thinking is, I think --

well, it seems to me to reflect, one -- they don't matter, that um, oh, it's part of their culture.

Uh, I think the thinking probably comes from the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody, about keeping Aboriginal men out of the criminal justice system, out of the jails -- it's a whole mixed bag of thinking.

LIZ JACKSON: Patrick Dodson was the only Aboriginal commissioner on the Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody.

PATRICK DODSON: There's an aberration happening in the community and that has to be turned around.

Um, so if jailing people for serious crime, or taking those matters to police and having them sort it out in the court, then that has to happen.

I have very little mercy for that situation, of protecting anyone under that system.

And hopefully you can get communities to respond to the seriousness of these things by that form of action.

And hopefully it'll act as a deterrent rather than an increase in the numbers.

But it'll have to be coupled with a number of other things, I think.

Just taking one line of action is not going to be the answer to that because that woman will live in fear until that bloke comes out of jail.

JANE LLOYD: Look, jail is obviously not the panacea.

It's not, you know, going to fix all.

But it is appropriate where serious violence is being committed.

And if it means that a woman can live safely with her children for a period of time, that is worth it.

It is worthwhile.

And it's the only message that these men are getting that what they're doing is wrong.

The message isn't coming from anyone or anywhere else.

LIZ JACKSON: What do you think happens in communities where there is no service like yours?

DAISY WARD: I don't know.

I don't know what would happen to them.

Must be bashing the woman up --

bashing the woman to death, maybe.

CHILD: Turn right.

No, not this one -- up there.

DRIVER: Up there, OK.

LIZ JACKSON: There are only three women employed by the Domestic Violence Service.

Their total funding amounts to $160,000 a year.

It's a modest sum.

They want to take on another worker because they know there's a section of the community out there now whose needs they are not addressing -- the children who are the victims of sexual abuse.

LIZ JACKSON: While the problem of domestic violence is now a public one, child sexual abuse has remained largely undisclosed, undetected, under-reported.

JANE LLOYD: We really don't know the rates or the figures.

I think largely they're detected through health clinics, picked up by children having STDs.

Occasionally a report is made.

A child will, you know, disclose or report something, but they're very difficult -- and it's difficult when you're talking about small, kin-based communities again, because -- you know, 95, 99 per cent of the times it will be a family member who has probably committed the assault.

LIZ JACKSON: Which means the chance of it being reported are..?

JANE LLOYD: Are really really low.

Yeah.

LIZ JACKSON: Do you think some of the children who take their own lives do so because --

DAISY WARD: Yep.

LIZ JACKSON: ..of the sexual abuse --

DAISY WARD: Yep.

LIZ JACKSON: ..that they've suffered in the past?

DAISY WARD: Yep.

LIZ JACKSON: Back in 1998, Four Corners reported on youth suicide in the Aboriginal community.

That year, just in the Kimberleys, 11 young people had taken their own lives.

4 CORNERS VOICEOVER: OCTOBER 1998: The situation was about to get worse.

MIDNIGHT OIL SONG: What the hell went wrong?

4 CORNERS VOICEOVER: During the concert, an announcement went out seeking a nine year old boy who'd gone missing.

There was no response.

MIDNIGHT OIL SONG: And you just keep wondering, wondering What goes on --

LIZ JACKSON: As the program reported, the following morning it was found that the nine year old boy had hanged himself.

It only emerged much later, after the program went to air, that the boy had been a victim of sexual abuse.

Two members of his family have since been charged with sexual assault of the dead boy's younger brother.

The case has rocked the local community and forced them to confront the issue.

What lies behind the suicides that have become an all too familiar event.

CAROL MARTIN: Hopelessness, helplessness, despair.

What drives them to it -- that's what scares me.

And we gotta do something about it.

And I believe sexual abuse is connected to it.

Not in all cases, I must admit, but in a lot of cases.

LIZ JACKSON: And for years, it seems as if for a long time, that's been the unspeakable -- that people have known about it, but it's been the unspeakable.

Is that what you think?

Is that true?

CAROL MARTIN: Yep.

Unequivocally, yes.

LIZ JACKSON: Why do you think it's been so hard?

CAROL MARTIN: Oh -- why?

Who wants to own it?

You say it, mate, you own it.

That's it.

That's the community we live in.

LIZ JACKSON: Are you concerned about the connection between the level of youth suicide in the Kimberleys and child sexual abuse?

PETER YU: Yes, I am, as I said, uh --

in the local community it's uh -- a well talked about issue.

My concern is that, um, the going to funerals of, um --

our youth who've taken their own lives is becoming such a commonplace thing that it's seemingly part of the norm and that's the tragedy of it all.

The tragedy of that, and I suppose in some ways, in relation to the sexual abuse issues as well too, is that what concerns me most is how it's just talked about in general conversation sort of tone levels.

That it's not with any sense of great concern or exclamation to the extent that -- shit, you know, we've really got to do something about this.

LIZ JACKSON: Down in Perth, the Aboriginal services have decided that they've had enough.

Because the problem of child sexual abuse is not confined to small towns and remote communities, it's happening in Perth.

Ted Wilkes is the Director of the Aboriginal Medical Service.

For years he's been seeing the victims of abuse walk through his door.

They rarely tell the welfare or police.

TED WILKES, DIRECTOR, WA ABORIGINAL HEALTH SERVICE: What they do is they come to people like me and they say, "Help me".

And they say to the doctors and the other people that work in this organisation, "Please help me."

But they won't go to the authorities and expose these people.

LIZ JACKSON: Ted Wilkes knows he'll be criticised for going public, but he feels he owes it to the people he's trying to help.

TED WILKES: We have a duty of care to all of those Aboriginal people that live in the city, and I'm sick and tired of picking up the pieces of young children, mums and young men who have been abused as young people and wearing those scars through.

They then get into drug abuse.

They then get into other forms of self harm.

Who picks up the pieces?

LIZ JACKSON: Again, it's been a suicide that brought the issue to a head in a small closed Aboriginal community, in the Perth suburb of Lockridge.

Next month, there'll be an inquest into the death of a 15-year-old schoolgirl found hanging in a disused toilet block four weeks after reporting physical and sexual abuse to the local police.

Her mother was also sexually abused from the age of 13.

She disclosed this the day before her daughter's funeral.

TED WILKES: How can a lovely, beautiful young 15-year-old all of a sudden want to pull the pin on this lovely world that we call Earth?

And, er, I think about it very deeply and I say that's not on.

And why would that happen?

And who and what made that happen?

And if there are people in this world that have, um, been, er, complicit in, in any other way of bringing that about because of their own, um, selfish, um, devious needs, well, then they need to be held accountable.

And my body says to me, whilst you might go through the trauma of having your people come at you in a variety of ways, at the end of the day, you've got to stand up, Ted Wilkes, and say enough is enough.

LIZ JACKSON: What people who work on the ground know is backed by this internal report of the WA Department of Health.

It states: "child sexual abuse is an urgent and serious problem in all Aboriginal communities -- " The notification rates for sexually transmitted diseases are devastating.

Last year in Western Australia: "there were 49 gonorrhoea notifications in 10-14 year-olds -- that's 562 per 100,000 for Aboriginal people versus 3 for the non-Aboriginal population."

There were 55 notifications for chlamydia, again in the 10-14 year-olds.

WA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH REPORT: "for Chlamydia, in the 10-14 age group there were 55 notifications -- rate ratio for Aboriginal to non-Aboriginal 124:1".

LIZ JACKSON: That's over 100 times more prevalent than in the non-Aboriginal population.

The report admits that: "health care providers in Aboriginal communities feel ill-equipped to deal with disclosures of child sexual abuse."

And there is "no structured training available for them to deal with the issue."

DENNIS EGGINGTON, DIRECTOR OF ABORIGINAL LEGAL SERVICE (AT MEETING): Internalised depression, brothers, LIZ JACKSON: Aboriginal agencies know this and they want child abuse properly addressed.

Despite the shame of going public, they've come together to say that, as a first step, the silence must end.

TED WILKES: It certainly touches all of us.

There are some cases where, in our own families, we're aware that, er, men or women or older men and older women, um, are abusing some of our own children.

And I've said that very clearly.

And I've also said, er --

LIZ JACKSON: Ted Wilkes is from the medical service.

TED WILKES: It's a matter of the Aboriginal community getting together with the proper authorities --

LIZ JACKSON: Dennis Eggington is the director of the Aboriginal Legal Service.

DENNIS EGGINGTON: Sometimes I've gone around and talked to people and said, "Oh, look, this stuff's gonna get opened up."

I get grimaces on the face.

Sometimes I'm thinkin' about, "Well, what are they grimacing for?

"Because it's such a hard thing?"

And I think to myself, "Well, maybe they're grimacing because "in their own life they know that family members and others "will get caught up in the web."

Er, it's amazing stuff but, you know, we're talking sometimes at meetings where nine out of 10 people, and particularly women, are saying that there's abuse.

And then when we've started talking about it among ourself, the abuse within our own family structures just reinforced the fact that when you've got a group of Aboriginal women sitting down and, um, and our men folk who have been through institutions and stuff, the abuse is widespread.

LIZ JACKSON: Dean Collard is the director of the Manguri Centre, which provides support for Aboriginal children and families.

DEAN COLLARD, MANGURI CENTRE DIRECTOR: I was gonna suggest that we might take the opportunity of acknowledging publicly the problem that does exist.

It seems that it's submerged or hidden.

It's a taboo subject.

And, er, clearly, I believe it's in our interest as Aboriginal leaders to take the lead, er, and make it a public issue that faces all of us.

That it's, it's horrific stuff.

It's terrible stuff.

TED WILKES: All I can say to you is it touches all Aboriginal families.

And, er, for fear of, um, intimidating other Aboriginal people that live in this city with me, I need to say to you that it is out of kilter.

Um, the systems that we have in place at the moment aren't able to deal with it.

CHILDREN SING: If you want to be with me show me that you love me --

LIZ JACKSON: Aboriginal women and children deserve the same protection and the same services, the same justice and redress, as other victims of violence and abuse.

CHILDREN SING: If you love me, you don't hit me Don't destroy my life, my spirit I'm not a slave and I'm not a rag doll to be toyed with by you.

LIZ JACKSON: The biggest danger is that we turn away.

Taking the easy out that it's all too hard and anyway it's their problem, let them sort it out.

That's no longer a good enough response.

There's too much at stake.

PATRICK DODSON: If you continue to abuse the children, abuse the women who are the mothers and who are the future of the Aboriginal people -- the survival of the indigenous people of this country is at stake.

CHILDREN SING: ..don't want to be punched or bashed by you --

DAISY WARD: We should really do something.

Try and help.

Because if them kids start to grow up and start doing all those silly things and they start dying out, well, who's going to be our next generation?

CHILDREN SING: Do you hear and stand up for our freedom?
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