Aboriginal communities are breaking down

Guess where a report found the following conditions:

• lack of medical and disability services,
• no Home and Community Care services,
• no dental care,
• a decline in education services and school attendance,
• large turnover in the number of nurses,
• problems with sewerage and clean water provision,
• failure to approve foster carers, and
• children swimming in sewerage ponds because local pools were not operational.

These conditions were reported from two Aboriginal communities in Western Australia's Goldfields region [1].

Many Aboriginal communities and families fracture and break down because Aboriginal people cannot deal with their current situation, but also because many governments have neglected basic services and infrastructure for decades.

None of us had fathers, everyone was locked up in jail. —Dean Daly-Jones, Aboriginal actor [11]

Unable to lift themselves out of their despair, Aboriginal people turn to excessive alcohol consumption and take marijuana and sniff petrol. This is then followed by violence, murder, self-harm, suicide and child sex abuse.

Some say that the problem has worsened since Aboriginal people have been driven off pastoral leases in the 1970s to settle in towns [2].

As a result of the experiences of the Stolen Generations many Aboriginal people have deep-seated fears about being removed from their communities by white people, be it for welfare reasons or for imprisonment.

This leads to a 'code of silence' which surrounds abuse [3] because Aboriginal people do not want to relive the traumas of forced removals which are just starting to heal after the Australian government's apology in February 2008.

Imagine last year, we had a funeral every weekend in Fitzroy Crossing. —Joe Ross, Aboriginal leader, Fitzroy Crossing, in 2007 [2]

Abuse of children

Though they are the most helpless members of Aboriginal communities, children bear a great deal of the violence and abuse from Aboriginal people.

The Little Children are Sacred report in 2007 uncovered heart-breaking stories about child abuse. Its authors made 42 recommendations to the Australian government, but just over a third of them had been fully adopted two years later. Child protection workers report a 'huge backlog' of cases, hundreds of which 'had not been touched in years' [4].

Aboriginal children are far more likely to be on a care and protection order, one of the "last resorts for authorities" [8]. They are also 7 times more likely to be removed from their parents and placed into out-of-home care than non-Aboriginal children [5].

According to a report [8] the underlying causes of the Aboriginal over-representation are the legacy of the Stolen Generations, poverty and "perceptions arising from cultural differences in child-rearing".

Helping Aboriginal children requires professionals, such as social workers, welfare workers, nurses, doctors, police and teachers, but attracting these into Aboriginal communities proves a difficult task [5]. But Aboriginal lawyer and Nyoongar woman Hannah McGlade does not see an outside solution working. "The real changes I believe strongly have to come from Aboriginal people within the community because we are the ones that have to protect and care for our children," she says [10].

Governments receive "pretty grim" reports but sometimes take 18 months before they investigate what's going on [6].

There's no doubt sexual abuse is a serious problem within many Aboriginal communities across the Northern Territory. —Rex Wild QC, former Director of Public Prosecutions [6]

Truck drivers buy sex from 12-year-olds

In several states, the Australian Crime Commission has found, truck drivers buy sex from Aboriginal girls under 16 years of age (the legal minimum age of consensual sex). 12-year-old girls use contraceptive implants, children as young as seven experiment with sex toys and children trade sex to sniff petrol or for food [7].

Nurse resigns "due to a broken heart"

A community health nurse has resigned after 18 years in the job because she could no longer cope with the abuse and neglect of children in the Aboriginal community she was working for.

The nurse "cared deeply" for the health of Indigenous children but she moved to a job in an aged-care home "due to a broken heart." [7]

Facebook causes bloodshed

On Palm Island in far north Queensland, Aboriginal youths have stirred long-held animosities by writing inappropriate comments on Facebook.

Elders have blamed social networking sites such as Facebook for a variety of problems including blood feuds between warring clans, other acts of violence, and false criminal accusations against people [9].

Aboriginal youths clashed in a bloody street brawl on Palm Island after comments on Facebook reignited a long-standing family feud.

The island's mayor, Alf Lacey, said the shift to the Internet had spilled over into bloodshed in "many Aboriginal communities" [9].

A similar incident happened in the Torres Strait where a Facebook page was swamped with negative comments [9].

Every Aboriginal community in Queensland has a web site. —Alf Lacey, mayor, Palm Island [9]

Help

Help Kids Help Line is Australia's only national children's counselling service providing 24-hour counselling services to young people aged 5 to 25 years.

Freecall 1800 55 1800, or online at www.kidshelp.com.au.

Out of respect for Aboriginal culture I use Indigenous sources as much as possible.
[1] 'WA Government accused of neglect', Koori Mail 508 p.12 [2] 'Fitzroy in alcohol crisis', Koori Mail 412 p.39 [3] 'Singing farewell', Koori Mail 427 p.3 [4] 'Mixed response to abuse report', Koori Mail 464 p.18 [5] 'Project looks at lack of child protection workers', Koori Mail 413 p.55 [6] 'Abuse report with NT Govt', Koori Mail 400 p.9 [7] National Indigenous Times, 26/6/2008 p.27 [8] 'Child abuse, neglect 'a major problem'', Koori Mail 518 p.9 [9] 'Fears over Facebook', Koori Mail 518 p.10 [10] 'Assault victim honoured', Koori Mail 466 p.9 [11] During Q&A after the screening of 'Toomela' at Message Sticks 2012