debate
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John said,
As a keen researcher on Aboriginal activities for some years now, I believe that the Howard Government’s intervention into the Northern Territory is entirely appropriate. For one to claim otherwise simply justifies the child abuse, sexism, and gross misconduct which occurs in these communities.
To blame the legal system or the police for the lack of successful sexual assault abuse convictions is senseless and mere folly. This site seems to advocate some form of mob/ socialist ruling party which will play judge, jury and executioner.
Furthermore, the example of Iraq is completely ridiculous. Firstly, the Coalition of the Willing is attempting to SAVE Iraqi women from the abuse of the past Iraqi fascist regimes, which by the way are under the laws of militant Islam.
The Howard Government, NSW Police and Australian Army are doing their best to stop sexual assault and abuse. It is sites like these which devalue the great work of our community leaders and put obstacles in the way of their noble efforts.
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anita said,
well, firstly this site is advocating an autonomous, community based response to sexual assault. this is because responding to sexual assault needs to be based on the individual needs of survivors of sexual assault, needs to empower them as part of their healing process, needs to take into account their needs and desires, and what they want. in allowing survivors to determine the way that perpetrators are confronted, and in prioritising their support, responding to sexaul assault can be a way of giving them back some of the power that was taken away during assault.
it might be that survivors of sexual assault want to go to the police, want to use the legal system to deal with perpetrators. but this site acknowledges that the legal system’s way of responding is very often traumatising, invalidating, and in no way supportive or empowering, and also that it is ineffective in challenging the root causes of assault, encouraging behaviour and belief change, and in fact itself displays and perpetuates a lot of myths about sexual assault that are part of a rape culture. it is one thing to assist survivors to use the legal system if they so desire, and quite another to provide a very inadequate system as a person’s only choice. community response, mediation, autonomous restorative justice type approaches, non-government, etc are an alternative that some people might feel is a better option. this kind of response has nothing to do with the legal system. there is no judge, jury, and no execution. it is about belief, support, validation, and then, if the survivor so desires, a response that gives a perpetrator a chance to change, acknowledges that sexual assault is a behaviour that is fostered by the culture in which we live, separates the person from their behaviour, and gives them an opportunity to take responsibility for their actions and to change, rather than locking them in a cell and hoping when they get out something will be different.
secondly, i completely disagree with what you said about the northern territory intervention. the racist legislation that the howard government justifies on the basis of “saving children from sexual abuse” does not even mention the word ‘child’ once. it has nothing to do with support, nothing to do with sexual abuse, and is directed entirely at denying aboriginal communities autonomy.
it is a legislation that applies the same to 73 very unique communities, regardless of the circumstances or context of any community. some things that are included in the legislation are:
sending in “business managers” to communities. these are white, government paid bureacrats (again, where all aboriginal funding goes – to white people that are working to “save” or “help”, never to aboriginal people themselves) who live on communities, can determine who lives in a community, and are very similar to mission managers of the White Australia past. a story i heard recently involves one community that has been requesting housing for thirty years. in this time, one house has been built – the new business manager’s house, which was built when an old home was demolished to make room, and surrounded with barbed wire fence – to protect him from sexual abuse, perhaps? they dont even live there full time.
the permit system for Aboriginal land that was put in place with the NT Land rights act has been removed. permits meant that non-residents had to apply to land councils for permission to enter communities, and helped prevent entry of illegal grog runners, and so on. even the NT police say this is a bad idea, and doesnt even fit with the government’s rhetoric about preventing paedophiles from roaming the streets in aboriginal communities. government says it is to allow government officials to enter communtieis and build houses and the like. this is a lie – government officials have actually never been subject to the act. all the removal of the permit system has done is remove hard won aboriginal rights to land.
publicly funded computers will be monitored. we’ve discovered this includes computers people buy with their welfare money. everything a person looks at on their computer will be recorded and stored, supposedly to monitor pornography consumption. there are no provisions for what will happen with the recorded information.
the legislation provided for military health checks. thats right, not conducted by doctors or sexual health experts, but by military health officials. this began, but no evidence of child abuse was found, and it has been temporarily suspended because noone knows what should be done after health checks have been conducted.
CDEP program has been removed. this is a program which is generally used as a top up for the dole in communities where there are no jobs. it allows aboriginal people to effectively be paid for roles they determine for themselves – funds programs like aboriginal land ranger and conservation, aboriginal art and music initiatives, etc. 8000 people were on CDEP. removing this means that people will no longer be able to participate in these roles, and may have to move to cities like alice springs and darwin for work in order to survive. the goverment has said it will create 2000 new jobs. no mention is made of the 6000 people who wont be able to access those after having their CDEP removed.
welfare reforms mean that all aboriginal people living on communities, regardless of their familiy situations and etc, or even of whether they are parents, will have 50% of their Centrelink payments withheld, and turned into vouchers and coupons to be spent on government determined items at places that the government says they can use the coupons. this is justified with rhetoric about ‘neglected children’. but it applies to all centrelink payments – student payments, unemployment payments, old age nd disability pensions… it also ignores the fact that within centrelink there are already programs for people to quarantine part of their payment voluntarily, and 900 families are already doing this to assist with managing their funds. again, this compulsory racist program reminds us of food rations at the old missions. the only determinant is ‘aborignal’ in a ‘prescribed area’ – the only determinant is race. this legislation also wipes out already existing autonomous aboriginal programs such as free breakfast programs for school age children at schools, which aboriginal women ran by putting aside their own money, pooling it and using it to provide free breakfasts. now, these women ahve been kicked out of schools, and parents’ money is quarantined and they are forced to spend part of it on that food that was previously free. these reforms are costing $88 million to implement. imagine if aboriginal communities had access to this kind of money.
centrelink were training aboriginal people in communities to administer welfare programs before this legislation, providing jobs for people in communities, so money could be retained in the community. this legislation removes this, and instead provides for 300 white people from canberra to be paid to administer welfare.
this is the third time in history that the Racial Discrimination Act has been suspended. every time it has been in relation to Indigenous peoples. first, for the native title act, then to override wishes of traditional owners in Hindmarsh island, and now this.
this legislation effectively clears the way for mining, nuclear waste dumps; and attempts to make communities unsustainable so aboriginal people have to again move off their land into cities. it is yet another act of dispossession.
when you talk about our great community leaders, it seems you mean white people, not the great aboriginal community leaders who are resisting, refusing new mission managers, and defending community autonomy. you must be talking about the 750 white people that have now been given new, very highly paid ($100,000 +) jobs in these communtiies where aboriginal people themselves cant get jobs.
some new housing is being provided on the edge of alice springs. the old transportables from woomera detention centre.
this is apartheid. this is racism. this is paternalism, and this is government controlling the lives of indigenous people. initial white research teams went in with the military.
it has nothing to do with sexual abuse. people on town camps and in communities have not even really been told of the existence of this legislation. there has been no attempt to translate and communicate the requirements of the legislation to aboriginal people. young people have faced ridiculous fines which they cant afford to pay because they dont even know that they cant buy prescribed amounts of alcohol.
Women for Wik Discussion 14th October
Are you concerned about what is happening to Indigenous communities in the NT and would like to hear the views of women working there?
Come and meet three women at the heart of the NT intervention and hear what is really happening and what is needed. Meet Olga Havnen, national Indigenous leader from the newly formed Combined Aboriginal Organisations, Eileen Cummings, former advisor to the Chief Minister of NT on Aboriginal and Women’s Affairs and her daughter Raylene Rosas. The event will be chaired by Dr Anita Heiss, novelist and social commentator, Vice-Chair of the Australian Society of Authors.
The justification for the Federal intervention is to protect the Indigenous children in the NT so we need to make sure that this is what happens. Can the present and proposed approaches adequately serve the needs of the women and children in the NT who need help? Or are there serious flaws in the approach?
Women for Wik has been re-established to provide support for the women in the NT who have been working on these issues for some time and to assist them in monitoring what is happening.
We therefore invite you to join us for a meeting
between 2- 4 pm on Sunday 14th of October
at the Australian Hall
150-152 Elizabeth Street, Sydney.
This venue has been selected because is symbolic as well as convenient. It was the venue for the first national Aboriginal civil rights gathering
the Day of Mourning and Protest Conference
on the 26 January 1938.
For a Community Response to Sexual Assault
Sexual assault happens in all of our communities, all over the world. In Australia, for example, one in three women and one in five men will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. It is an issue that all communities need to deal with, and that some are dealing with. We need to recognise that most of the members of our communities are either survivors of sexual assault – meaning they are people who have been assaulted – supporters of survivors, perpetrators of assault, or often any combination of these things. Underlying power dynamics and patriarchy, assumptions and understandings of masculinity and femininity, sex and consent, all contribute to fostering a culture of sexual assault.
Sexual assault is usually perpetrated by men, against women predominantly, but also against other men, trans and intersex people. Most sexual assault is committed by someone the survivor of the assault knows – their relative, their friend, their partner. Myths and assumptions about sexual assault, together with the culture of assault in which we live, contribute to a lack of understanding around assault issues and a general inability or lack of knowledge around how to deal with this stuff.
The government has used sexual assault to justify its “emergency intervention”, or rather, racist invasion and denial of Indigenous autonomy, in the Northern Territory of Australia. Its use of the ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ report, a report documenting the prevalence of child sexual abuse in communities in the Northern Territory, to legitimise and excuse its military and police invasion, removal of land permit systems, alcohol bans, even more extensive surveillance of Indigenous communities, withholding of welfare to members of Indigenous communities and soon to be other Australia communities, and removal of the CDEP program, which sustains many communities, is disgusting. It shows just how little understanding of sexual assault issues, the underlying assumptions and understandings that perpetuate a society of sexual violence, or how to deal with, respond to, and eventually prevent, sexual violence, our government has.
Sending in the military and police to somehow “deal with” sexual violence assumes that sexual assault is something that is perpetrated by strangers in dark alleys, thus able to be stopped or dealt with by military and police patrols and ‘law and order’. Yet this is a myth. Intimidation and fear are not going to combat sexual assault. Occupation and denial of community autonomy are likely to merely contribute to despair, depression, fear, and substance abuse. Agents of the state are perpetrators of sexual assault as well. The military and police forces are known for sexual assault within their forces, and against others, particularly in Indigenous communities in Australia, and in other situations of military occupation such as in Iraq and the Solomon Islands. In fact, one of the members of the Board overseeing and orchestrating the Northern Territory intervention was also a facilitator of the occupation of the Solomon Islands. Some communities have themselves called for police involvement in dealing with sexual abuse, but not all. What is most important is that communities themselves direct the way they want to deal with sexual violence.
Alcohol and drugs may in some situations be related to sexual assault. But banning alcohol and drugs doesn’t do anything to deal with addiction and the reasons for substance abuse. It ignores the fact that many communities are already dry communities, and are already dealing with alcoholism themselves. In fact, the legislation has done things like ban kava in communities that use that substance to combat alcoholism because it doesn’t lead to the same aggressive behaviour.
There is no provision for support for children and adults who are survivors of sexual violence, which should be central. Rather, children will be subjected to frequent invasive medical checks that may re-traumatize survivors of assault. It contains no discussion of education, or ways of changing the understandings and assumptions in our society that contribute to a culture of sexual assault.
In fact, the legislation doesn’t really mention sexual assault or survivors of assault at all. For the government, sexual violence is merely something they can use to justify removal of land permit systems to gain control of Indigenous land, which has nothing to do with assault, and to undermine the autonomy and self-determination of Indigenous communities in an attempt to make them unsustainable. Despite the rhetoric around the ‘Little Children Are Sacred’ report, none of the report’s recommendations have been taken on by the government, and the legislation has been condemned by the authors.
The Northern Territory intervention is a racist intervention. It is ridiculous that our white government thinks that Indigenous communities are unable to respond to sexual assault themselves, with their own processes and understandings, especially when we look at the way sexual assault is dealt with across the rest of Australia, by relying on an alienating, adversary and difficult to access legal system.
Almost no assaults are reported to police, and most reported cases result in no conviction.
This is not because they are “false claims” but because the legal system forces someone who has been assaulted to try to “prove” their claim, doubting them, disbelieving, pressuring them to relive their assault and undergo invasive medical examinations that may remind the person of their assault. This treatment is almost like a second assault. The survivor must be probed by police and lawyers, who are usually uneducated around assault issues and re-traumatise the survivor. The survivor must go through the assault again, not when they are ready but when the legal system tells them too, in the framework the legal system provides.. Being doubted invalidates the survivor’s experience. Most assault happens in private – it makes it the survivor’s word against the perpetrator’s. Requiring sexual assault to be proven ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ makes it almost impossible to convict perpetrators of assault.
Being cross-examined in court, often in the same room as the perpetrator, by defense lawyers who are trying to devalue and de-legitimise what a survivor is saying, to break them down and destroy their credibility, in order to win their case at all costs, is traumatising for a person who has gone through an assault. Judges are usually upper class, mid-50s white males, who have very limited understandings of the experiences of survivors, and often lean towards the descriptions of events given by the perpetrator. Just recently a woman appearing in court to prosecute her assaulters was attacked by the defense lawyer who tried to suggest that the noises she made during her assault were “moans of pleasure”. When questioned afterwards, the lawyer excused his behaviour, suggesting that you have to do things like that to win the case. Lawyers will pull at all stops to destroy the other side, regardless of the impact this has on people’s lives.
In the rare case that a perpetrator is convicted, prison does nothing to confront and challenge the behaviour and underlying assumptions and understandings that foster a culture of sexual assault. There is no educational function of prison, no attempt to meet the survivor’s needs or satisfy what they might want to happen or need from the perpetrator, nothing that allows the perpetrator to take responsibility or change their behaviour.
The government is not doing anything to deal with sexual assault. Both major parties support the Northern Territory intervention. Sexual assault is never really a major issue for any party. We need to think of ways within our communities that we can respond to and deal with sexual violence ourselves. Ways in which to focus on supporting survivors of assault, helping them to heal. To learn how to support, to provide space for a survivor to tell their stories. We can learn from models of justice like restorative justice. We need to deal with perpetrators of assault in ways which prioritise the needs of the survivor, and allows them to have control and autonomy in the process. The process needs to provide a mechanism by which the perpetrator of violence can take responsibility for their behaviour, to confront themselves, and to change. To provide them with an opportunity for redemption. And in doing so, the process can be empowering for the survivor, if they control what happens.
We need to work within our communities to try to prevent assault from occurring in the first place. This means educating ourselves and the people around us, unlearning underlying behaviours and understandings of sex and consent, relearning the ways that we interact with others. We need to empower our communities, to recognise that we can deal with assault, we can come up with collective solutions, and create accountability processes within the spaces we create.
We can teach ourselves and constantly learn ways of engaging in a community response to sexual assault, in all its forms, not merely when a particular situation occurs but to respond to and try to change the culture of sexual assault and violence at its fundamental levels.
Indigenous Communities Reject Occupation
From togsplace.blogspot.com/2007/07/indigenous-communities-reject-howards.html
PM John Howard’s decision to “take control” of 60 to 70 Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory began to be implemented on June 27 when the first Australian Federal Police (AFP) officers flew into the Aboriginal township of Mutitjulu, near Uluru. The police officers were met by a large community delegation demanding answers.
Howard’s announcement on June 20 that the federal government would use police and military personnel to take control of Indigenous communities followed the release the previous week of an NT government report titled Little Children are Sacred. The report documented instances of severe child sexual and physical abuse in the NT and identified Indigenous children as being at particular risk. It made 97 recommendations to the NT and federal governments to deal with the crisis, and identified poverty and dispossession as key causes of abuse.
Howard’s response, however, has focused on a punitive “law and order” push within the Indigenous communities. The measures that will be imposed on the communities include: six-month bans on alcohol and x-rated pornography; compulsory health checks of all Indigenous children under 16; the “quarantining” of 50% of welfare payments to ensure the money is spent on food and children are sent to school; a federal government takeover of Indigenous townships, which will be put on a five-year lease, supposedly so that emergency repairs can be made; and the scrapping of the permit system that gives Indigenous people the right to restrict entry into Indigenous lands.
To enforce the measures, the Howard government has called for 10 police officers from each state to back up the AFP officers, and is deploying Australian Defence Force personnel to provide “logistical” support.
The June 27 Sydney Morning Herald reported families in the NT fleeing to the desert in fear that the government was coming to take their children. Indigenous NT minister for natural resources, environment and heritage Marion Scrymgour said: “There’s a lot of fear, particularly among elder woman. Not so long ago — 30 to 40 years — children were being taken out of the arms of Aboriginal mothers.”
One of the authors of Little Children are Sacred, Rex Wild QC, has strongly criticised the Howard government plan. The report begins by exhorting governments to work with the communities in question, not against them. It documents examples of community programs that have managed to reduce alcohol abuse and, with this, child abuse, by empowering local townships.
According to Wild, the Howard government is doing the opposite. On the June 27 edition of ABC TV’s Lateline Business he said, “We didn’t arrive with a battleship. We came gently … Now … we’re just having the gunship sent in.”
Wild also criticised the removal of the permit system, which he said was neither part of his report nor a logical way to tackle alcohol or child abuse in Indigenous communities. The permit system was a vital part of some of the successful programs referred to in the NT government report because it allowed Indigenous community leaders to remove people from townships who were smuggling in alcohol or pornography.
Howard’s measures also ignore two other aspects of sexual abuse in the NT. First, child sexual abuse is not limited to Indigenous people. The NT report notes that non-Aboriginal people in mining settlements often procure sexual favours from minors in exchange for cigarettes, alcohol or petrol for sniffing. The Minerals Council has been consulted about this, but it denies any knowledge of the problem and there is no suggestion that the lives of non-Indigenous people in the mining towns be regulated in the same way as those of Indigenous people in these communities.
In addition, while sexual abuse of minors is also a serious problem within NT prisons and juvenile detention centres, no new measures for NT prisons have been announced.
The people of Mutitjulu are deeply sceptical about the government’s measures. In a June 28 statement, they point out that a lack of medical services and overcrowding have been problems in their community for at least a decade, yet all requests for government assistance have been denied (see the full statement on page 3). The community has asked for street lights to help reduce crime at night and alcohol counsellors to help people trying to end addiction, but they have been given nothing.
Mutitjulu’s land council was taken over by the government a year ago amid claims of mismanagement, yet no evidence of mismanagement has been found.
The Mutitjulu statement questions the need for a “military occupation of their small country”, and elders meeting with government and AFP officers on June 28 declared that the government’s action had more to do with winning the next federal election than helping Indigenous people. “The Commonwealth needs to work with us to put health and social services, housing and education in place rather than treating Mutitjulu as a political football”, they said.
The removal of the permit system could force Indigenous people permanently off their land. By law, if Indigenous people leave their land for any reason, they forfeit their right to have a say over mining and development on the land. Mining companies are currently attempting to expand uranium mining on Indigenous land in the NT, and are seeking a site for an international nuclear waste dump. The permit system, which requires companies to get permission to explore potential dump sites on Indigenous land, is a major obstacle for the companies.
Jennifer Martiniello, a member of the advisory board of the Australian Centre for Indigenous History at the Australian National University, argued in a public statement on June 27 that the main motive behind Howard’s intervention is to attack native title. She said: “We have a long history of deaths and illness from radiation, from the atomic tests at Woomera in the 1950s to the current high incidences of carcinomas in the community at Kakadu near the Jabiluka site. The main obstacle to the Federal Government’s desired expansion of mining operations in the Northern Territory and nuclear waste dumping is, of course, the Aboriginal people who have occupancy of, and rights under the common law to, their traditional lands.”
International Day Of Action: communities response to sexual assault 