Five-year-old boy allegedly raped in remote NT community

Whistleblowers and advocates are calling for greater public disclosure of child sexual abuse in the Territory after a five-year-old boy was allegedly raped in a remote community this week.

A five-year-old boy has allegedly been raped in a remote NT community.

A five-year-old boy has allegedly been raped in a remote Northern Territory community this week, triggering calls for greater public disclosure of child sexual abuse in the jurisdiction, as one advocate claims half of the 20 remote communities she visited in 2024 had children as young as five exhibiting “harmful sexual behaviour”.

Multiple sources confirmed to The Australian that a 19-year-old male was arrested and charged following the alleged rape, which occurred at a small community in the northern part of the Territory, near the Gulf of Carpentaria, on Tuesday.

The 19-year-old will face ­Darwin Local Court on Monday charged with sexual intercourse of a child under 10, following his arrest on Wednesday.

The case led child safety advocates to call for more ­information to be made public about serious sexual assaults on children to increase awareness of widespread child abuse in the ­Territory.

The charging of the 19-year-old came within hours of the Prime Minister’s fly-in, fly-out visit to Alice Springs to announce $843m in funding for the Territory.

The funding is set to be delivered over six years to strengthen the delivery of services in remote ­communities, including policing, women’s safety, alcohol harm reduction and “mediation and peacekeeping activities”.

Anthony Albanese’s visit on Thursday came just over a week after Peter Dutton visited the region, which has been blighted by crime, domestic violence and anti-social behaviour.

Child abuse prevention educator Holly-ann Martin, who has visited 87 remote communities during her 35-year career to provide her abuse preventation education ­program, said there was an “epidemic” of child sexual abuse and further awareness needed to be drawn to the “nationwide issue”.

Child abuse prevention education specialist Holly-ann Martin OAM has been working in the field for 35 years. Picture: Supplied

“I would have been in at least 20 remote communities last year and at least half of them were because of children exhibiting harmful sexual behaviours,” she said on Friday.

Ms Martin, who was awarded an Order of Australia for her work with children, said these cases had already been reported to authorities, but she was seeing children as young as five who had been exposed to pornographic material and were then going on to act out what they were seeing in pornography on other children.

She said that politicians and senior police were too afraid to speak out about the issues happening across the Territory.

“They (politicians and senior police) just are covering it up,” Ms Martin said.

“We need to shine a light on it so we can protect children.

“If we keep saying ‘nothing to see here’, then children aren’t being protected.

“The government have just announced today all this money for the Northern Territory. There’s money for women, (but) where is the money for abuse prevention for children?”

In October 2023, Mr Albanese refused calls by the Coalition for a royal commission into child sex abuse in Indigenous communities, claiming the opposition was politicising the matter.

Earlier that year, Mr Albanese was forced to reject claims by Mr Dutton that he had failed to act on information that abused children were allegedly being returned to live with their abusers.

“Peter Dutton makes all sorts of claims, and the tragedy here is that serious issues, like the abuse of children, that Peter Dutton or myself or I would hope any member of parliament has a uniform abhorrence of, shouldn’t be used as a political issue,“ Mr Albanese said in April that year.