Jenny Tuita can still see the girls’ faces, staring at her as she left the doctor’s room.
She was 15, held on remand at the Metropolitan Girls Shelter in Glebe, and had just endured the trauma of her life.
Volunteering for a wildlife organisation caring for ducks at Bungaree Reserve in Gosford has helped Jenny Tuita find solace. Credit: Kate Geraghty
Tuita doesn’t know if she was strapped or held down. She recalls punching and screaming, then a cold feeling on the inside of her legs. She blacked out. Six or so other girls, none older than 15, could all hear her screams.
“They must have been terrified,” Tuita said. “In two weeks, [the shelter] ruined my life. Imagine the girls who were in there for two years.”
Half a century later, Tuita is on a mission to find them. Her lawyers are investigating a potential claim against the state government over invasive medical examinations at the shelter, and want to talk to witnesses and survivors about a practice they believe was widespread in NSW institutions throughout the 1970s.
Jenny Tuita, aged 15, the same age she was when she was charged as “uncontrollable”.
“It’s quite likely that this affected any girl who has ever been to one of these centres,” said Robyn Hibbert from Shine Lawyers.
When approached about Tuita’s case, Hibbert said the government had used the laws of the time, which permitted the examinations, “as a shield to protect them from any liability”.
“Just because a piece of legislation allows you to do something [that] does not mean that you can do that thing negligently or in a way that causes harm to somebody,” Hibbert said.
A Department of Communities and Justice spokesperson said it assessed claims on a case-by-case basis and could not comment on individual cases.
Tuita wound up in the shelter after hitchhiking from her home near Dubbo to Sydney with a friend who was searching for her father. After living in a one-bedder in Sydney’s inner west for a few weeks, her mother reported her missing, and she was charged as “uncontrollable” under the since-abolished Children’s Welfare Act.
At the shelter, she was subjected to virginal testing – a medically invalid and invasive pelvic examination performed to determine whether a girl was sexually active, and therefore liable to be charged with being “exposed to moral danger”.
Concerns have persisted for decades about the invasive practice, widely known to have occurred at other institutions including Windsor’s Wilson Youth Hospital and the notorious Parramatta Girls’ Home.
In 1974, women’s liberationists climbed the roof of the Glebe shelter to demand the controversial facility’s closure. It was demolished four years later, making way for a new children’s court.
It has left Tuita with life-long scars. She cannot sit on a doctor’s examination table, and cannot have an MRI without sedation. The smell of cigar smoke is intolerable (a psychologist has since told her the doctor was likely a smoker).
Tuita said she was speaking out to hold institutions to account, and encouraged others to do the same.
“I’m strong because I’ve spent my life fighting,” she said. “There’s a lot of healing in telling your story, but come forward. Don’t let the government win.”
If you or someone you know need support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or Beyond Blue. SANE phone and digital support services can be accessed at sane.org. In the event of an emergency, dial Triple Zero (000).
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