Is Melinda Tankard Reist asking for all young girls to be removed from their communities so they can't be targetted for sexual abuse? Is she prepared to fight for adequate funding for boarding schools so that they are staffed by compassionate and qualified teachers? That the schools guard against abusive predatory adults getting into positions of care?

No I would interpret Melinda's argument as intelligently arguing an alarmingly simple point. There is a persuasive argument of 'harm minimisation' that surfaces continually in our social debates. It seems that some are content to sweep problems under the carpet by minimising the 'harm' in a situation. In this regard, it is to prevent unwanted pregnancies and STIs among the young female indigenous population, by providing more and better access to a range of contraceptive methods.

Melinda is simply highlighting that this approach, whether theoretical or practical policy, is a terrible solution that ignores the human rights issue of protecting this vulnerable group of people from further abuse.

Wouldn't you agree? The harm minimisation argument comes from a sector of society that has lost faith in the goodwill of people and the capability of humankind to overcome adversity. It implies an acceptance of current injustices as unavoidable and attempts to minimise the damage, albeit with good intentions, while the result is actually counter-productive. Look at injecting rooms for drug addicts and arguments such as the one in today's paper concerning cannabis sold in pharmacies.

When injustices occur, we must react firmly and promptly to stamp it out and treat the problem at its source. The problem Melinda highlights has to do with sex abuse in Indigenous communities and it will be in the government's best interest to expedite urgent action in it's carrying through of interventionist policy in this regard.

IT seems this is another policy just to look like they are doing 'something' even if it is not at all addressing the issues. Mal Brough was one of the few pollies with the ticker to take some positive action. As long as people are to gutless to stand up to these cultural practices women and especially young girls will be treated at least as bad if not worse than extreme Islamic groups treat their women. If Mr Rudd wants to get beyond useless grandstanding with useless symbols he will do something about this human rights issue right in our backyard.

If my daughter was being sexually abused I would want her removed from harm, not fitted with an implant to prevent pregnancy! I think indigenous girls/women are are entitled to the same standards we would have for our own daughters - that there be a focus on protecting them from sexual predators, not just pregnancy.

It's a difficult issue. There isn't a clear answer here.

Yes, the ideal solution as other posters have pointed out, is to remove children from the situations where they are being abused. It simply isn't acceptable.

On the other hand, I don't think it's going to happen. Fear of repeating a 'stolen-generation' type situation makes it harder, and proving these things is never easy. But ultimately, I agree we should say to hell with political correctness, and get these children the hell out of there.

But if that's not going to happen, then yes, Implanon is a better alternative. Reist keeps mentioning that it 'brands' girls for sex, but we have only her statements. I dare say it happens, but I doubt most girls advertise they have the implanon treatments, and in order to be in that situation, they must already be in a situation where they are abused frequently.

Pregnancy is only going to continue the cycle. It sounds depressing, I know, but what chance does a child have, born to a 13 year old rape victim? I'd never condone a contraceptive of this type if it was done against the will of the child or her parents, but if they want to have it done, then I think they should be able to make that decision.

If, just once, Reist made a stand for women's rights that wasn't in line with Catholic pro-life, anti-contraceptive sentiment, then perhaps I'd believe that her priority here places the welfare of these girls above that goal.
As it stands, every piece she has written has attacked forms of contraception.

I think she's using this to further her agenda. Even if just one of her articles didn't fit neatly into that agenda, I'd reconsider, but as it stands, she doesn't put forward alternatives. She just wants them to stop the implanon treatments.

I'm a bit disgusted that something like this is used to further her political agenda.

I'm a bit confused, TurnRightLeft... are you saying, you could see merit in Melinda's argument, only if she weren't associated with an agenda with which you disagree? That seems an odd basis to judge an argument.

I can understand the good will with which this Implanon move has been undertaken. I wonder how easy it is however to move contraceptive "harm minimisation" from a middle class setting to the poverty and violence that some of these girls are living in. I think that Melinda's theory is not proven, certainly - but I would like to see some research that the outcomes for girls who are given this implant are better than for girls who are not, before giving my tick of approval to the administration of powerful contraceptives to minors.

No I don't think young women who are victims of sexual violence should be removed from there community, I think it is the perpetrators who sexually abuse women and girls who should be removed and incarcerated until they choose to change there harmful behavior. That goes for abusive men in all communities. I also think we need to stop perpetuating the culture which breeds rape and sexual violence against women i.e. the sexualisation and trade of the bodies of women and girls.

Wow, TurnRightThenLeft that was a long bow to draw.

Melinda has done so much work and research with women, and written extensively on all sorts of issues to do with women and their protection. It's a bit rough to suggest that she is obsessed with anti-contraceptive sentiment, furthering her political agenda and that her pro life views are necessarily Catholic. What's political about what she wrote? It's a shame that intellectual debate can't occur without people judging someone's noble intentions.

Among other topics, Melinda's work includes women suffering from post-abortion trauma, women protecting their children from a eugenic culture and the issue of pornogrpahy in indigenous communities. Articles or book reports on these topics are linked below for your information. None seem to be about contraception and political agenda.

http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6114

http://www.capersbookstore.com.au/scripts/shop_item.asp?by=cat&item=2164

http://www.duffyandsnellgrove.com.au/titles/giving_sorrow.htm

Thanks Melinda for your article and the enlightening points you made.

Reist,

you're world really is a very negative and despondent one, when it comes to your projected (gender based) self identitiy.

Do you have any positive, empowering or hopeful things to say about the female gender experience and by inference, anything remotely positive or supportive to intimate about the male gender experience?

Your 'woe is me by association' platitudes are a very effective way for the powers that be to sit back whilst you keep you and your ilk firmly down.

Typically emotive and dissapointing offering melinda.

Stop&Think, and Jane -

No, it's not just the other articles she has written. In this piece, she makes no concession to the fact that at times the implanon treatment may, sad as it is, be the lesser of two evils.

Aside from the throwaway comment that pregnancies may be regrettable, the piece is just one large emotive tirade against the practice, because she claims it brands girls for sex.

As I see it, these girls are clearly being abused, and yes, they should be removed. But in lieu of that happening, the implanon implant is better than them getting pregnant unwillingly.

I don't believe Reist accepts that at all. She doesn't discuss alternatives. The entire piece is designed to make people want to halt the idea of the implants altogether.

It's a sad situation, but I don't believe just yanking the implanon implants would improve things. I sincerely doubt they would be used in anything but the most obscure instances.

So no, it's not a long bow at all.

And stop and think... uh, yes, those articles you linked to are most definitely to do with issues of contraception. Hell, the third one is tales of grief associated with abortion.
If you're trying to show a case otherwise, no offence, but you're doing a poor job.

I don't doubt that unfortunate stories with abortion do occur, but again - she's doing her damnedest to bring the one negative side of the story to the fore, without acknowledging that unfortunately it may be necessary. It's most definitely one with a political agenda.

She may argue for women - on her terms. Same with her pieces against pornography.

This piece isn't balanced.

Where's the honest analysis of the situation, or suggestions? Where's the discussion of the situations that DO warrant an implanon implant? Why hasn't she discussed those too? Is she seriously trying to tell us there's NO situation's where it's warranted? If so, does that sound more like concern for the victims, or an agenda?

TurnRightThenLeft, very well summed up in both posts.

I agree with the first part of Annette's post in that ideally it's the abusers who should be removed. I doubt that's going to happen at an effective scale anytime soon (for a variety of reasons) nor do I think we are ready to handle the flow on effects of doing so.

Dealing with the problems in some of the remote indiginous communities is something we struggle with. Few want a repeat of the stolen generation nor do we want even greater numbers of indiginous adults locked up. Various governments have run large number of inquiries and produced large number of reports to mixed reactions.

I struggle as an outsider trying to work out which indiginous leaders are really trying to help and which are so tied up in milking white guilt that they undermine anything which looks like it might help.

If I had a daughter who was engaged in sexual activity that for whatever reason I was unable to prevent then I'd want to minimise whatever harm I could.

As a middle class suburban parent there are a number of strategies I could consider to protect my child, having the offenders dealt with, professional help for my child, relocation if other strategies did not work. Things don't seem to work that way for many of the families in the remote communities.

R0bert

History repeating itself Melinda,

State medical services engaged in unilateral temporary
or permanent sterilisation of Aboriginal women in the 1970's on Palm Island and in Western Australia. They used Depo-Provera, producing
three-to-six month infertility, and more alarmingly in Queensland, the "non-explained" tubal ligations.

See Roger Moody, ed. The Indigenous Voice, Visions and Realities, vol. 1, Zed Books, London, 1988, at pp.324-6.

JaneS, "are you saying, you could see merit in Melinda's argument, ..." What is MT argument? Is it summed up in the title "It’s about branding girls for sex."? I think it might be, and if it is then TRTL has a point.

An article discussing the downsides of these contraceptives vs say the downsides of a 12 year old girl having children, or any of the other rather sad trade offs surrounding this issue would of been timely. But that isn't what we have, is it? Well not quite - she also suggests that removing all 12 year old girls from their communities is an option - but surely she isn't serious. So what we have is an argument that essentially boils down to "giving contraception to girls means you are branding them for sex".

This sounds remarkably like the position of the Christian fundamentalists in the US, who prefer abstention to information and contraception because the latter encourage promiscuity. As as result we have the bizarre situation that US fundamentalists have higher teenage pregnancy rates than the rest of the US population. Given that choice most Australian families I know choose contraception & promiscuity, and it sounds like that is what the authorities are doing in this case as well.

"the implanon treatment may, sad as it is, be the lesser of two evils."

TurnRightLeft, what evidence do you have that it is indeed the lesser of two evils? We may feel it instinctively... but isn't it time we started going less with our internal biases when it comes to indigenous issues and more with empirically supported evidence?

JaneS asks for irrefuteable proof that supplying 12 year old girls with contraceptives is better than allowing them to become pregnant.

Maybe JaneS thinks that 12 year old girls can say no to drunken lustful men.

Maybe JaneS thinks that 12 year old girls who have been sexualised by exposure to pornography want to say no to sex.

Maybe JaneS is unaware of the dangers of pregnancy to mature women without adding the complications that pregnancy would visit on many immature bodies. Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complications_of_pregnancy lists them as

1 Routine problems of pregnancy
1.1 Back pain
1.2 Constipation
1.3 Contractions
1.4 Dehydration
1.5 Edema
1.6 Gastroesophageal Reflux Disease (GERD)
1.7 Hemorrhoids
1.8 Pica
1.9 Lower abdominal pain
1.10 Increased urinary frequency
1.11 Varicose veins
1.12 Abdominal separation

2 Serious problems of pregnancy
2.1 Ectopic pregnancy (implantation of the embryo outside the uterus)
2.2 Pelvic girdle pain (PGP) (gait and weightbearing syndrome)
2.3 Placental abruption (separation of the placenta from the uterus)

Then you have to ask yourself how can a child care for a baby in our complex society without a great deal if intervention? As a society we think childern are ill-equipped to raise a family that's why Australians aren't allowed to marry until they are 18, 16 in exceptional circumstances.

I totally understand Reist's abhorrence at the treatment of these girls. What readers such as myself have been taken aback by is her rhetorical question: "Why weren't they removed"?

Reist probably genuinely wants protection for these young women, yet simply calling for their "removal" from their communities is not in itself the answer. On its own, such a response makes a nice fit with those Windschuttle/Bolt-ites who have argued that there was no "stolen generation" and that Aboriginal children always benefited from being removed from their communities.

Also, consider her argument that these Aboriginal girls are "primed for sex at ages considered unacceptable in the white community". Does this mean that the sexual abuse of girls and women is not rife in the "white community"? Why is the "white community" (whatever that is) yet again being used as a litmus test of social acceptability?

The questions raised by the treatment of the young women discussed in Reist's article are many and various. There are no easy answers. Hopefully, if there is an "inquiry" into this issue, we will hear a range of voices. These include writers such as Reist, as well as Aboriginal activists who consider this abuse to be totally unacceptable.

Pregnant in Primary School?

Aboriginal girls (in remote communities, on AVERAGE) are sexually active earlier than other girls. Their may be some cultural and 'grooming' aspects to this, but much of it is simple biology.

We know about family breakdown (or non-formation) in aboriginals communities, where a child's NATURAL FATHER is living elsewhere or known...

Repeated research shows this has a HORMONAL EFFECT of fathernessness on girls...

Natural fathers protect their girls. Repeated research has proven that girls without their natural fathers (especially girls who have a 'step-father') are at risk.

They are three times more likely to become pregnant as teenagers and suffer from premature puberty. Girls who grow up with a man who is not their Natural father are likely to reach puberty in primary school!

Ther are also three to 5 time more likely to become pregnant as teenagers, have more sexual partners and related ill-effects like STD infections.

This is AFTER controlling for income, race, and other likely causes. Studies have considered Maori, Hispanic, European, Afro-american. It's not an effect of Race, not Class nor poveerty, it's FATHERLESSNESS.

Children NEED their NATURAL PARENTS.

ABC TV http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s958787.htm
New York Times: http://partners.nytimes.com/library/magazine/home/20001224mag-puberty.html
New Scientist http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg16422062.400-daddys-girl.html
Citations http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-7687.2004.00380.x
Citations http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1467-8624.00569

PartTimeParent@pobox.com
www.Fahters4Equality-Australia.org

This is just in reponse to runner's comment that was posted and that in that runner said that it was a "cultural practice", and i just want to make it clear that what is happening in these communities are not part of indigenous culture at all. these problems are occuring in these communities because it is these communities that are being neglected. Is rape a part of white culture? Is prostitution a part of white culture? Is drug addiction a part of white culture? I dont understand why do people think that these things are a part of indigenous culture. why are'nt indigenous people acknowleged for their true culture, their song, dance and art that has survived in this country for man thousands of years. rape is not part of indigenous australians culture