Sheep matter more than children now, apparently

ACTIVISTS are happy to shout about fashionable social causes, but seem all too willing to turn a blind eye over the abhorrent abuse of children in the Northern Territory, writes Miranda Devine.

In recent weeks, we have heard stories of indigenous children as young as two being sexually assaulted. There is no suggestion these children are abused. (Pic: Ben Tweedie).

IT took being raped before a two-year girl was removed from her “family” in Tennant Creek.

She suffered “significant and painful” injuries in the February 15 attack, after which she tested positive for gonorrhoea and was given HIV medication.

It was “not the only violence that [she] had been exposed to, and experienced, in her short life”, according to a report by the Northern Territory children’s commissioner.

Welfare authorities had known for years about the violence, abuse and neglect in her home. There had been 52 notifications about the girl and her older siblings. The report found the girl faced “foreseeable risk of harm [that] could have been managed or mitigated”.

And then, last week, we heard of another child sexually assaulted in the same community, a five-year-old. Only this time police won’t get involved because the alleged perpetrator is aged under ten, acting out whatever is the norm in an indigenous community now so dysfunctional it poses a mortal threat to children. This is the national shame of child abuse in the NT.

Yet there are more tears spilt in this country for animals than for these defenceless children.

We have Liberal MPs ready to cross the floor and animal activists screaming blue murder about a bunch of sheep on a ship but barely a peep about the abuse, murder and neglect of children in dysfunctional indigenous communities. Where is the equivalent of Animals Australia for suffering children? Where are their hidden cameras?

All we hear from the activists is “Change Australia Day!”, “Pull down Captain Cook statues!”, “Say Sorry!”, “Change the Constitution!”

We would not leave children in danger in any other community but everyone is so afraid of being branded racist or culturally insensitive that they leave indigenous children to be tortured. Authorities are worried about being blamed for another “Stolen Generation” when what is needed now is a “Rescued Generation.

There is no culture in which raping two-year-olds is acceptable.

Drastic action is needed. Maybe the idea of cash incentives for drug addicted, abusive parents not to have any more children until they get their act together would work to stem the epidemic of child abuse.

But what we know is that the NT’s child protection system has failed, again. These children need to be rescued.