Not just about sex abuse - and maybe a tacit admission that medical facilities in the outback have been a bit lacking over the years.Aboriginal child health checks set for launch
The first of the Federal Government's health checks of Aboriginal children are scheduled to begin in a Central Australian community today.
..."It's a voluntary process, that people give informed consent, that they know what they're having done," he said. Mr Williams says the medical checks will not be invasive and that teams will conduct a standard health check of Indigenous children.
He says doctors will speak to the child's guardians during the consultation to check if there is concern for their welfare.
"If there's serious concern about abuse that's substantiated with the typical health check, we will be reporting to the appropriate authorities," he said.
The first team will arrive in Hermannsburg, near Alice Springs today, led by Tasmanian GP Emil Djakic. "It's really important that these teams are working with the local health community, rather than being seen as external forces," Dr Djakic said. "We have to focus on the ... good stuff that is already happening in these communities."
The Health Department is expects to send out new teams every week starting from Monday. It estimates the health checks will take six months to complete.
Ambassador. An Australian Olympic athlete will also be at the Indigenous community of Hermannsburg.
The Commonwealth's child health check ambassador and Australian athlete Nova Peris says she will hand out hats and T-shirts today in a bid to encourage families to take their children for a health check-up. "Eyes, ears, upper respiratory, skin infections all these things get pushed aside from other things," she said.
"If you've got a child health team that's going to go in there and be specific about improving the health of Indigenous children, what person wouldn't want it?
"The medical people out there in Hermannsburg are fully aware of what's going on. "We need to look at it from a community perspective.
"Additional medical support will be given to the community in order to focus primarily on the health of those kids in that community."
ABORIGINAL pr0n BAN A JOKE: ADULT INDUSTRY
An adult entertainment industry lobby group says rogue traders operating from Darwin post office boxes are making a mockery of the Federal Government's pornography ban in Northern Territory Aboriginal communities.
From today x-rated pornography is banned in Aboriginal communities as part of the Commonwealth's battle against child abuse.
Robbie Swan from the Eros Foundation says the traders are offering unclassified films that could easily find their way into Aboriginal communities.
"Well at $12 for a DVD, yes I think they could, I mean it's extremely cheap," he said.
"If you wanted to buy an adult classified film from Canberra, you're looking at $50.
"These ones are [cheap], which means these people don't pay any classification fees because they're not classified and they don't pay copyright fees."
BROUGH URGED TO BAN 'PORNO CHANNEL' SBS
Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Mal Brough says Aboriginal woman want him to ban television station SBS because of its pornographic content.
A ban on pornographic material has come into play today as part of the Commonwealth's intervention into child sex abuse in remote Indigenous communities.
Mr Brough says the Attorney-General's office is working to stop people in Aboriginal communities from accessing pornographic pay TV channels.
Mr Brough says Aboriginal women have supported the ban and want it extended to block some material on SBS.
"That's what they raised with me, it was extraordinary, I actually was a bit confused," he said.
"They said 'Are you going to get rid of the porno channel?' and that's what I thought they were talking about.
"I said we are working on that, we've got to see how we can restrict access to those sorts of things, because it's part of what we're trying to achieve here in this emergency phase.
"Then they said 'We're talking about SBS'."
United Nations adopts Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples
13 September 2007 – The General Assembly today adopted a landmark declaration outlining the rights of the world’s estimated 370 million indigenous people and outlawing discrimination against them – a move that followed more than two decades of debate.
The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples has been approved after 143 Member States voted in favour, 11 abstained and four – Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States – voted against the text.
A non-binding text, the Declaration sets out the individual and collective rights of indigenous peoples, as well as their rights to culture, identity, language, employment, health, education and other issues.
The Declaration emphasizes the rights of indigenous peoples to maintain and strengthen their own institutions, cultures and traditions and to pursue their development in keeping with their own needs and aspirations.
...
...
Article 18
Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves in accordance with their own procedures, as well as to maintain and develop their own indigenous decision-making institutions.
Article 19
States shall consult and cooperate in good faith with the indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative institutions in order to obtain their free, prior and informed consent before adopting and implementing legislative or administrative measures that may affect them.
...
From ABC, 25 Oct. 07
STOLEN GENERATIONS SURVIVOR DIES AT 107
Relatives and friends are mourning the death of a former member of the Stolen Generations who has died at the age of at least 107 in Port Hedland.
Like hundreds of Aboriginal children, Belinda Dann, from the Pilbara region of north-west Western Australia, had no recorded date of birth.
She was taken from her family at a pastoral station near Derby and brought up at the Beagle Bay Mission, north of Broome.
Ms Dann's son, Bernard, says his mother was a religious woman and a hard worker.
"We were very poor and I remember her making her own soap to wash our clothes and that sort of thing ... washed by hand ... chopped the firewood ... she did the work of men," he said.
Ms Dann's funeral will be held in Port Hedland this Saturday.
Probably considerably less but that should not be a factor when considering you grow up never knowing your family and probly spend half your life looking for them or trying to answer questions that would not have been raised if you were not stolenIt is not thoughtful to make such a comment on death note, but what struck me is that there is such a debate on Aboriginal mortality and I wander what would be her longevity like should she have not been stolen?
HappyIt is not thoughtful to make such a comment on death note, but what struck me is that there is such a debate on Aboriginal mortality and I wander what would be her longevity like should she have not been stolen?
Girl, 10, 'probably agreed' to sex
By Tony Koch and Padraic Murphy
December 10, 2007 12:10am
NINE men who pleaded guilty last month to gang-raping a 10-year-old girl at the Aurukun Aboriginal community on Cape York have escaped a prison term, with the sentencing judge saying the child victim "probably agreed" to have sex with them.
Cairns-based District Court judge Sarah Bradley ordered that the six teenage juveniles not even have a conviction recorded for the 2005 offence, and that they be placed on a 12-month probation order.
Judge Bradley sentenced three men over the age of consent of 16 - aged 17, 18 and 26 - to six months' imprisonment, with the sentence suspended for 12 months.
Judge Bradley said from her Cairns home yesterday that she considered the sentences "appropriate" in the case because they were the penalties asked for by the Crown prosecutor.
I can't believe this 'Judge' came to this sentencing decision, on what facts we have. Her days are numbered, I hope.I expect the police are as exasperated with results like these too, so little point in the aborigines getting upset with the police.
Kerry Shine (Qld A.G.) will appeal against the sentence (non-sentence!)
The judiciary make a habit of this sort of thing.
I can't believe this 'Judge' came to this sentencing decision, on what facts we have. Her days are numbered, I hope.
Perhaps there was presumed to be some 'traditional' justice to follow.
I can't believe this 'Judge' came to this sentencing decision, on what facts we have. Her days are numbered, I hope.
Perhaps there was presumed to be some 'traditional' justice to follow.
such an important point chops ..Totally bizarre considering a 10 year old isn't legally able to give consent anyway.
Well, let's hope their leaders and those in the white population who are in a position to make a difference to their outcomes don't take such a negative and pessimistic view.Well. surprise, surprise, its been a few months since my last appearance in this thread and by the sounds of things the whole Aboriginal state of affairs seems to be even worse, I didn't think that was possible!!!
I don't think there is a solution for them and my prediction is that things will deteriorate further until over many hundred years they will essentially disappear. Interbreeding and substance abuse will be the end of them.
I don't think they have the genetic makeup to survive, possibly some form of natural selection is occuring?
Thats my theory anyway.
I wish them all the best but i just don't see them surviving myself.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?