Tha lack of posts here says a great deal about the mood of the nation - several hours in for this to be the first post says child abuse is not very high on the nations agenda -

If the essay was alluded to abuse by priests or perhaps hinted at a predilictin of Muslims to abuse children I would be at the end of religious zealots and other nut bags offering their views - as it is thing, zip, nada - Zeeero

Look how quickly the abuse of aboriginal children has slid off the pages of our papers and political radars - any action taken will be

Why becuase child abuse in all its manifestations is as a wide spread as cheating on your taxes - it is almost a national pastime, up there with cricket - it is as popular as reality TV.

Our leaders are dead scared to pick the scab of this one as they will be ashamed of the outcome

That is wh

Crikey! i scribbled that in haste. I should have finished my sentence

..... Any action taken re the NT and child abuse will be motivaed by shame and self interest - that is, politicians and civic leaders hell bent on saving their respectives arses for ignoring a problem that has been festering under noses for years.

Same can be said for Royal Commission - it will never happen - if it does it will be reactive to some shameful episode yet to come - not proactive in response to the crimes we are aware of today - and because some ones hand is forced - again by only shame and self preservation -

Why spend money and time to care for our own children or those of or neighbours - when is a 1:1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, - chance of being winged by a terrorist to worry about? or having to put up with sings written in a foriegn language in our suburbs - these seem to be the issues confronting whitebread australia today - Jesus wept!pathetic really.

But hey! the resuorces boom does not look like slowing and the price of oil has dropped - at the same time the housing market is holding it own - all is right with the world - excuse me while I puke

Tragic to hear of the authors own assault. The easy available of pornography will and is making the situation worse than ever before. To deny that is to stick your head in the sand. Many of the indigneous communities in the outback have received much of the filth that the X rated industry in Canberra supply. The end result is that most (nearly all) indigneous children being abused. What many see as a harmless bit of self indulgence often opens the door to child sexual abuse. Just read a little about the serial sex killer Ted Bundy and you will get the picture. Unfortunately the selfisnness of human nature causes people to defend their rights instead of being concerned for the community at large. While the media, TV shows and magazines portray young woman as sex objects more unscruplous people will see that as an invitation.

I put this post on another page, but it more rightly belongs here.
Runner, I don't think the availability of pornography has a lot to do with it. As I read it, most of the sexual abuse of under age girls should be categorised as incest, either comitted by siblings or other close relatives. There wasn't any pornography available when I was young, sixty years ago, but the stories from some of my contemporaries about their sexual proclivities made your hair curl.

If you locked up all the men/boys who commit incest you would be putting away a sizeable proportion of the population. It is much more prevalent than anyone out there realizes and it starts from quite a young age in all sections of society.

I am not condoning it, I am not sure what you do about it. It is something like domestic violence, it gets passed on from father to son, just as alcohol abuse and unsocial attitudes. A lot of girls/women out there just have to accept it as part of life, particularly in isolated communities where there is no recourse to justice.

I applaud the author's attempts to get a royal commission up, but I am not holding my breathe, there are too many skeletons in too many closets to be let out.

VALUES EDUCATION ENQUIRY.
yep..I'd MUCH rather see an enquiry in to what has led our nation to such a degree of degeneracy that we have to ask 'why is child abuse happening' ?

You see.. the problem here is that once such an enquiry is held, everyone will wring their hands in 'shock and awe' over the extent of the problem, and then...they will simply treat the SYMPTOM by banning all hugging and male female touching at high schools..and then..primary schools and they will deprive a generation of the innocent love and genuine affection that we all need and crave for.

I say... lets look at issues such as respect,honour, love, true affection, loyalty, and dare I say it...(but this one won't get up) Love for our Creator.

If an enquiry such as this is held, it will simply be used as a political football by various groups, to prove this or that particular hobby horse of social engineering they happen to be peddling at the time.

It would probably be used against men in marraige/custody hearings.
By teachers against students, and vice versa.

TREAT THE ROOT cause.... not the symptom.

I always remember the story of Watchman Nee a chinese evangelist greatly used of God to bring many tens of thousands into the kingdom, well.. if he spoke about 'sin' he used to prance up and down the stage, and looked a the various flowers and plants, go up to one and as he was saying about sin,.. you have to RIP it out by the roots, he would do so to a plant. Very graphic...but got the point across.

VK3AUU

Sexual abuse by women of children and teens is a subject most parents and caregivers are not familiar with. Female sexual predators go unreported because of a lack of awareness by the public.

75% of sexual predators are male and 25% are female.

86% of the victims of female sexual predators aren't believed, so the crimes go unreported and don't get prosecuted. Considering these facts, arrest statistics for child sexual offenders by gender are meaningless.

from "The Sexual Abuse by Women of Children and Teenagers"

UK TV programme - Panorama - BBC1 - 10 pm Monday, October 6th, 1997

http://www.canadiancrc.com/female_sexual_predators_awareness.htm

Female Perpetrators

As recently as 10 years ago, it was a common assumption that females did not or could not sexually abuse children or youth. Even some professionals working in the field believed that women represented only about 1% to 3% of sexual abusers at most. However, mounting research evidence about sexual abuse perpetration at the hands of teen and adult females has begun to challenge our assumptions, though these earlier and dated views still tend to predominate.