THE rape of toddlers by other children is commonplace in Aboriginal communities and, in one case, a girl was attacked so violently she has to wear a colostomy bag.
One boy showed pornographic DVDs to other children so they could re-enact the scenes, and another, aged 11, gave a sexually transmitted disease to two preschool girls.
As well, packs of boys aged as young as 10 raped drunk Aboriginal women who had collapsed in the street.
The gruesome details, provided in an Australian Crime Commission report released yesterday, are matched by the insouciance of the mothers, with one saying that as she had to put up with abuse, why shouldn't her daughter. Another said she had been abused 37 years ago, when "Aboriginal law had started breaking down".
The author of the report, Wendy O'Brien, says there is virtually no academic material acknowledging the existence of children sexually abusing other children. Evidence is drawn from testimony to various inquiries into Aboriginal issues and from the courts, where children end up when caught and prosecuted.
Dr O'Brien's report is essentially a review of this material, plus newspaper reporting, with some academic input.
The report says there is an "urgent need for increased studies on young children engaging in problem sexual behaviour" to overcome "what amounts to silence around this issue".
Reports of sexual abuse by children are met with "shock and denial".
Research suggests that young perpetrators have often been abused themselves.
South Australian child welfare expert Freda Briggs is quoted as saying: "When a child abuses others, inquiries should be made as to how the abuser learned what to do. It is possible that the behaviour was learned from personal experience, or from pornography.
"When a female child is involved in sexual behaviour with older boys, it is sometimes found that she imitates the sexual behaviour, having learned it from being abused herself."
Dr O'Brien's report cites a Northern Territory study that concluded that "everything we have learned convinces us that (this is a symptom of) the breakdown of Aboriginal culture and society".
Children are socialised in an environment that accepts sexual and physical violence.
"This acceptance has now been normalised and crossed generations," the review says.
Young girls see abuse as inevitable, and "they simply believe resistance is futile".
The report says animals are also among the victims.
"Each major jurisdictional taskforce or inquiry report into violence indicates some level of concern about this issue," it says.
The recent NSW Aboriginal child sexual assault taskforce reported that sibling sexual abuse was rife.
The NT board of inquiry report into Aboriginal communities identified "sex between children" and "children's exposure to sexual activity" as problems, and said "many sexual offenders were, in fact, children themselves, and some of these offenders were female children".
That inquiry heard of a 12-year-old boy interfering with a three-year-old, a 13-year-old boy interfering with a five-year-old and a 15-year-old interfering with a three-year-old.
In Brisbane, Dr O'Brien's review identified a four-year-old boy raped by two 10-year-old boys; and in central Queensland, a three-year-old was raped by two juvenile males and an adult.
She cites an 11-year-old-boy in Balgo, NSW, forcing two preschool girls into having sex with him, infecting both with disease.
Then there was the gang-rape of a 10-year-old girl at Aurukun, and repeated sexual assault on an 11-year-old boy by a gang of children who spent their days watching pornography and smoking marijuana.
The review quotes Griffith University associate professor Stephen Smallbone as saying this kind of behaviour is "not unexpected in communities where there is an absence of authority".
There are also reports of informal or formal prostitution -- exchanging sex for money or goods, including alcohol.
It quotes a remote-area nurse in the NT as saying children are "vulnerable and desperate and they crave things they do not get at home, such as love, attention and material goods".
- 27th Nov, 2008 The Australian
