Aboriginal woman are eighty times more likely to be abused than other Australians

http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/violence-against-aboriginal-women-80-times-worse/story-fnhnv0wb-1226661209335

why no outrage? Probably because even people pointing this fact out they are likley to be labelled racist. Historical revisionist (black arm band view) have a lot to answer for. Just as Labour's compassion for boat people have been exposed (ending in 1000 plus drownings), so has those who blame the whites for violent actions of tribes and individuals.

Good point, Runner. You may enjoy a recent publication by Stephanie Jarrett - 'Liberating Aboriginal People from Violence', in which she goes into devastating detail about male-on-female violence in remote settlements.

Over the past ten years, there have been around 120-130 murders in the NT, of which more than 100 would have been committed by Aboriginal men against Aboriginal women, some in the most horrific circumstances involving star-pickets, bricks, tree-branches, rocks, bottles, knives, etc.

Frankly, I don't see the slightest positive coming out of remote settlements, not now, not in the near future, maybe not ever. The quicker women can get away from them, the better off they will be.

The time is long overdue when we have to ask: "Is 'community' part of the problem, rather than part of the 'solution' ?"

Joe

'The time is long overdue when we have to ask: "Is 'community' part of the problem, rather than part of the 'solution' ?" '

Thanks Joe. I must admit I agonise over this one. I have visited and know many in communities in WA. As you know their are enormous integration problems when tribal people move into 'towns'. The thing that disturbs me is that many of the men and woman accept violence as a way of life.

True enough Runner,there's a force field of ideology surrounding the facts of the matter, it'd be fine for a Feminist to catalogue these facts and speak about them in public but a conservative wouldn't get away with it even though he might be proposing a solution.
There was another similarly themed article in the age a few weeks ago, about how older White women in the Territory are effectively surrogate mothers for numbers of Aboriginal children. One woman said that because the Aboriginal Grannies that she went to school with in the fifties are now either dead or too worn out to care for their grandkids they are appearing on her doorstep. This woman was very critical of the Gen X and Y Aboriginals and the system they were raised in, she said that when she was young the aboriginals were expected to do everything the White kids did at school and for the most part they succeeded.
Neo Liberal Multiculturalism is a brutal system, it's not just damaging Aboriginals but Whites and every other ethnic group, we already have a lot of very hard, very callous young people coming into adulthood and in outlook and temperament they're not like the preceding generations at all.

Jay,

Can you locate that Age article ? I'm amazed that the Age would run something like that.

Gen X and Gen Y remote Aboriginal people, dumping their kids onto their grannies - I hadn't considered that. Probably standing over their grannies for grog and ganja money at the same time, saves two trips.

I was just talking today to a lovely young student and when I mentioned about the numbers of young mothers (40) at one settlement dying in childbirth back in the forties and fifties, leaving 140 school-age children between them, she immediately and rather glibly threw in that the grannies and uncles and aunties would have looked after them. Maybe, but as you say, they were already tired and overloaded, and what is amazing is how FEW of those children were ever taken into care.

My poor old father-in-law lost his first wife in the mid-forties, and along with his two brothers-in-law-in-laws - the three men had married three sisters who had all died very young - they had fifteen children between them to somehow look after. They were a bit useless so he had to look after all of them and from the school records, you can see when he takes them all out of the school so he can go fruit-picking - then brings all of them back again a couple of months later. A real battler - none of his own kids were ever put into care of any sort, a good man, constantly working, gone now forty years.

Life was hard for Aboriginal people in the earlier part of the twentieth century, rural work, seasonal work, poor wages, the constant threat of economic destitution. Families fell apart, blokes shot through, mothers had break-downs under the pressure of no money and endless pregnancies. Mothers died, fathers died. Nobody has to posit any b@stards in white coats deliberately taking children away - circumstances were bad enough, for Christ sake, and for what ? What a stupid bloody interpretation.

Joe

runner,
It is about time the aboriginal communities faced this fact and took it on themselves to do something.

I read the 'Little children are angels' report, which motivated Mal Brough to start the NT Intervention. It is beyond me how a 3 year old child can have VD. I was disappointed when Brough was not re-elected and I hope he makes it this time. He seemed to me to have the strength to make the intervention work and I hoped it would be expanded into other states.

I have not heard lately how things are in the NT now, relative to kids abuse and education but one hopes it is improving.

Abuse of women and kids must be of the utmost importance.