Born of grog violence to child tragedy
15.12.2007
SHE was a child of Aurukun's beer bottle era -- a violent, drunken 13-year experiment into the officially sanctioned sale of alcohol.
When she was born in August 1995, the town's alcohol canteen was five years old, and her mother was a raging alcoholic.
Now aged 12, she is a multiple gang-rape victim whose story has been told around the world, a symbol of the moral decline of Australia's Aboriginal communities and the deeply flawed mainstream indigenous policies that have failed them.
At first glance she is just another bubbly and pretty Aboriginal girl -- bright eyes, laughing smile, a shock of unkempt dark, curly hair. But she was born with fetal alcohol syndrome, which left her intellectually and emotionally unable to cope with the trauma of life in the remote, dysfunctional community of Aurukun on western Cape York.
``She's probably functioning as a five- or six-year-old -- very little attention for anything you tell her,'' said a pediatric surgeon who examined the girl in Cairns after the most recent rape.
``She seeks attention by sexual acts with other people. She's desperately attention-seeking and she's well aware that by opening herself up to sex, she gets the attention she thrives on.
``She's very difficult to control -- she's very rebellious, she's got a foul temper, and I'm well aware numerous carers have had huge problems with her behaviour.
``She's been seen by pediatricians and psychiatrists, trials with stimulant medication, experidrome -- which is another behavioural management drug -- and none of them have benefited her,'' the pediatrician said.
``I think her constant moving from pillar to post with no firm carer in her life has not helped her behaviour.''
Before she was five, the girl was sexually abused by a close family member, and she was taken from the family by the Queensland Department of Child Safety and placed with indigenous foster parents.
There were many placements because she was a difficult child. She was slow to learn -- everything except talking, which she does almost constantly.
At age seven in Aurukun she was raped by up to five youths, suffering severe genital trauma. From that assault she was flown to Cairns base hospital for treatment, and the cycle of being placed in foster homes resumed.
Finally, in 2005, frustrated that the girl was making little progress, the department placed her with a non-indigenous foster family in Cairns, where she remained for almost a year.
All reports show this was an inspired placement. The family had another foster child, and this little Aboriginal girl appeared to be fitting in well. She was attending school, and the father took a year off from his public service job to give her constant supervision because he and his wife saw there was a little person worth saving hidden behind all that confusion and grief.
But in May last year, a distant relative in Aurukun died and the girl's blood family said it was culturally imperative she return to attend the funeral. Department of Child Safety representatives were advised and the child was put on a plane for the hour-long trip to the community, where she was met by her aunt and grandmother.
During the course of the next six weeks the girl was gang-raped by nine males, but was also raped on at least six other occasions. And yet no adult reported the matter.
A senior medical officer with experience in Aurukun told a committee investigating the case that earlier experiments with alcohol has ripped the heart out of the community. ``You must understand that there's been a loss of parenting skills due to the beer-bottle era between 1990 and 2003, when alcohol management came in,'' he said. ``Aurukun was (then) described as a second Beirut and that's even more applicable at the moment. Before the alcohol management program, 90 per cent of our work was alcohol-related trauma and domestic violence.''
It was in this environment that the girl found herself, wandering the streets, being stalked by males who knew no better. Even when she sought help, the rapes did not stop. When she walked into Aurukun clinic and asked for a pregnancy test she was not taken into care. It was almost a week later that results of tests came back from Cairns confirming she had gonorrhoea.
But two welfare workers from the Department of Child Safety dallied, with one later telling the investigating committee she was making inquiries to establish if gonorrhoea could be contracted in any means other than intercourse.
The same welfare worker did not pass on the report of the criminal sexual activity from the clinic to the police as was her statutory obligation. In fact, police heard about the crimes from other sources in the community almost by chance. And when the police insisted the girl be flown to Cairns and placed in care, the welfare worker said that would not happen as she had organised for the girl to have a weekend away in the bush with family members. The police officer warned the DCS officer that, should harm come to the girl over the weekend, she would be responsible.
History shows that the weekend in the bush did not eventuate and the girl was raped again.
Suggestions the nine males who subsequently pleaded guilty to rape -- only to walk free -- were able to commit their crimes because it was ``culturally acceptable'' is challenged by Aboriginal activist Gracelyn Smallwood.
``If culture was invoked here, all nine of those who pleaded guilty to raping this poor little girl would have been taken out and speared and murdered,'' she says.
But the young girl with the mind of an infant will forever find it difficult to understand why adults have caused her so much hurt when, as the doctor said, all she wanted was to be noticed.
