Page 23 - Indiginous Australians

Mary Alp
Further reports support this view. A 2010 report stated that child sexual abuse ‘was the least common form of abuse of Indigenous children, in contrast to media portrayals’. Likewise, the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Social justice report 2008 stated that -‘ the ABS statistics for confirmed child abuse did not appear to support the ‘allegations of endemic child abuse in NT remote communities that was the rationale for the Northern Territory National
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2008 Sorry to the Stolen Generation by Prime Minister Rudd. Another spell
binding moment for many – an apology to Indigenous people for the damage
done & a pledge ‘to remove a great stain from the nation’s soul’. I have already
mentioned above the ongoing increase in child/family separation – the Stolen
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2008 Closing the gap strategy where the Rudd Government initiated plans to close the ever-widening gap between many Indigenous & non- Indigenous Australians. This gap was reflected in shorter life expectancy, high infant mortality rates, poorer health & lower levels of education & employment. Listed among the causes of this disadvantage were racism & discrimination, lack of education or employment & cultural disconnection. It also acknowledged that the intergenerational trauma resulting from colonization we spoke of earlier – was a deep underlying issue. However, by 2016 all but one of the seven recommended
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youth suicide - we can get some idea of the severity of the gap. Given that the Indigenous population is only 3.3% of the general population, the figures are alarming. In 2016 the detention rate for indigenous children– those aged between
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97 Wikipedia, Indigenous Australians and crime’,‘Child abuse’ p.3.; Australians Together, ‘The Intervention’. 98 www.creative spirits Ibid.
99 Australians together – ‘indigenous disadvantage in Australia’.
100 The guardian Feb 2020.’ ‘Closing the Gap doomed to fail without Aboriginal people’s input’.
101 Ibid.
23 | P a g e
Emergency Response’ – The Intervention.
Generation.
This failure was reported to be caused by the lack of Aboriginal input . If we just look at 2 of these areas – youth detention &
targets were behind expectations.
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10 to 17 years was 26 times the rate for non- indigenous youth.
from 2014–2018 Indigenous Australian youth – those aged between 5 & 17 years - accounted for almost a quarter of all Australia youth suicides (85 of 357 deaths
Over 5 years