Australia Prohibits Aborigines From Buying Alcohol and Pornography

[ariesgem]

Alcohol and pornographic material are to be banned in some indigenous communities in the north of Australia after a report claimed "rivers of grog" were fuelling the sexual abuse of children.

Announcing a series of surprise measures in parliament yesterday, Australia's prime minister, John Howard, said children under 16 in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory would face compulsory medical examinations. More police officers would also be drafted in to help maintain law and order in the remote communities, including searching public computers for x-rated material, he said.

"This is a national emergency," said Mr Howard. "We are dealing with children of the tenderest age who have been exposed to the most terrible abuse from the time of their birth virtually. Exceptional measures are required to deal with an exceptionally tragic situation."

In other drastic reforms, indigenous parents who keep their children off school will have welfare payments docked and there will be tighter controls on income support to ensure parents spend money on food and other essentials rather than alcohol and gambling.

Some Aboriginal leaders attacked the plan as paternalistic and racist. Michael Mansell, an Aboriginal activist, said: "He is directing his venom at one race and one race only. He inflames the belief that black communities cannot survive without harsh measures."

Little Children are Sacred, the 316-page report of the Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse, said lack of education and alcoholism were the chief causes of child abuse in all 45 indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. Children as young as three were exposed to hardcore pornographic videos at home and had seen adults having sex, desensitising them to sexual behaviour.

Local police officers were accused of turning a blind eye to a "rampant informal sex trade" between Aboriginal girls aged 12 to 15 and non-Aboriginal local mineworkers, who paid the girls in alcohol, cash and other goods. Alcohol was used as a "bartering tool" by black and white men for sex with under-age girls, the report added.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,,2108706,00.html

[Mythsaje]

1. Can't speak for the porn

but didn't children throughout history see adults having sex? Especially when they all lived in a sod hut or something?

This DOES strike me as a little weird, really.

[Jed Dilligan]

3. Freud's not so popular anymore, but

his theory was that ALL children witness parental coitus at an early age, and this "primal scene" informs their sexuality for life.

I don't know if he's right about that, but the fact that he had the theory indicates the experience was probably quite common, if not universal.

[Mythsaje]

6. I would imagine...

The other stuff is worrisome, but this? It strikes me as uptight puritanical Christian bullshit.

[EFerrari]

12. It strikes me that Mr. Howard is in distraction mode and cares

not at all about scapegoating a vulnerable population.

What is he distracting from?

[harlinchi]

2. I'm not fully aware of the circumstances but...

...I would think that if the parents of those 12 to 15 year old girls had a few of those mine-working jobs there would be less of the rampant informal sex trade! In most places a rampant sex trade involving girls aged 12 to 15 would be called sex abuse, rape, statutory rape and a few other assorted names.

But let's blame the indigenous ones. The US did. Apparently Israel does. South Africa did, for a while. I guess the western world takes one of its cues from the Pope who asserts that indigenous welcomed the disease and turmoil brought to the shores by Catholicism.

Blame the victim. Yeah.

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. Dupe thread. Someone beat you to this one yesterday although your Guardian link was not included.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2889007

[Jed Dilligan]

5. Wow,

this would be A LOT less creepy if the initiative was coming from autonomous Aboriginal lawmakers.

[EFerrari]

8. Bingo. n/t

[canetoad]

13. Too right, Jed

A few Aboriginal leaders have spoken out in favour of this measure. It's a very emotional issue this week, so I will wait until the first flurry has died down then investigate what is really being said.

It's a dilemma. On one hand it is accepted that the shocking abuse of grog is killing aboriginal people, both in cities and remote places, on the other we cannot have two sets of rules for Australians. The Aboriginal culture is an ancient one, tied very much to the land. I don't know how valid the concept of group consciousness is, but you can't take thousands of years of one way of living and in a couple of hundred years turn it around to align it with Anglo/western lifestyles.

A couple of examples; a friend of mine travelled and worked extensively in the Northern Territory years ago. She said every couple of miles along the bush roads were rusted out abandoned old cars. Come pension day the locals would load up with grog and petrol and go for a drive. It would just never occur to them that they had to plan to get back!

I also spent a bit of time with Aboriginal park rangers in central Queensland and have never forgotten the words of one of them during an information session. 'You see', said Eric the ranger, 'Our people would cut a bark canoe from a big old gum tree. The tree was plenty big enough for six canoes, but if you only cut one, you could come back every year for twenty years and get a new canoe.' That sort of encapsulates it for me.

[Jed Dilligan]

14. The Indians or Native Americans

are ridiculously overrepresented among the homeless in this country. I'm talking about a factor of ten or twenty. Poverty and susceptibility to alcohol are the big factors, but I've also met folks who just weren't comfortable being housed. It takes more than a few generations to change people's fundamental nomadism.

[originalpckelly]

7. Oh, that's nice. The people who were there before you crooks have to follow your laws now.

It's like someone breaking into your house and eating your food, then making you follow their rules. Same bullshit here in America with the Native Americans. This whole world is so fucked up.

I mean the way Howard approaches this, it's like he's treating these folks like they're a bunch of children themselves.

I wonder how far that pole has to go up his ass every morning, I'm beginning to think he's giving himself brain damage.

[wuushew]

9. Why is John Howard still in office?

:shrug:

[BlooInBloo]

10. This should be a fun thread for all of the new visitors to DU.

[EFerrari]

11. So, is Howard only against the trade in girls in Aboriginal areas?

What about the rest of your country, Mr. Howard?