‘She was just a child yet assaults ignored’

The grandfather of a dead Aboriginal girl who repeatedly caught sexually-transmitted infections while underage has demanded to know why authorities failed to investigate.

Grandfather of 17-year-old Fionica James, Andrew Dowadi, outside the Darwin Local Court during an inquest into her death. Picture: Che Chorley

The grandfather of a dead Aborig­inal girl who repeatedly caught sex­ually transmitted infections while underage has demanded to know why authorities failed to investigate­ “who had assaulted her” and accused them of treating her “like an adult”.

Fionica Yarranganlagi James was found hanging near a rubbish dump on Goulburn Island off the coast of Arnhem Land three days after Christmas 2017.

An inquest last week heard she had suffered suspected domestic violence injuries that health staff did not report to the police. The “quiet and shy” girl’s life began to spiral out of control at about the age of 13, when she first tested positive for STIs.

Once, when she was diagnosed with four diseases, child protection authorities designated it a case of “emotional harm and neglect”. A man almost 10 years older was soon after found to be allegedly­ holding her against her will and forcing her to have sex with him. He was subsequently jailed.

Fionica’s grandfather, Andrew Dowadi, prepared a statement for Northern Territory Coroner Greg Cavanagh, who is considering his findings. In the statement, obtained­ by The Weekend Aust­ralian, Mr Dowadi said he had learned of his granddaughter’s STIs via his lawyer.

“This is very worrying for me, and I don’t understand why Territ­ory Families and the health clinic did not take it more seriously,” he said. “When there was evidence of Fionica having sex at such a young age, I think the health clinic should have told the police.

“The police should have asked Fionica what happened to find out who had assaulted her … it seems … the health clinic staff just treated Fionica like she was an adult.”

Representatives of NT Police, Territory Families and the Health Department lined up last week to apologise to Fionica’s family and those of two other dead girls for missing opportunities to intervene and potentially save them.

Federal Indigenous Austral­ians Minister Ken Wyatt has ­announced a review of the way STI notifications are handled, saying they were a “proxy indicator” of abuse and it was a “sad indictment that all tiers of government have not really come to grips with ­protecting children from the (high) levels of abuse”.

Former NT attorney-general and justice minister John Elferink told The Weekend Australian that during his tenure in 2012–16, he frequently battled human services agencies’ reluctance to “aggressively pursue” the origins of STIs in kids and accused health workers of applying “their own age of consent at 14 years”. The legal age of consen­t in the Territory is 16.

He attributed the prob­lems to a prevailing philosophy of “cultural rights trump(ing) human rights” and service staff’s reluct­ance to becom­e involved in prosecutions.

A government source said children were often pressured by relatives not to disclose what had happened to them, out of fear that official reports would see community members taken away.

“There can be payback as a result­ of saying who they had sex with,” the source said. “How does one challenge that? If more people talk, more victims will be identified and there will be more community members upset.”

Territory Families Minister Kate Worden offered her “deepest sympathies to the families, friends and communities’’ of the girls.