Rape of 10 year old by 9 men does not attract custodial sentences

[Freckle]

How bloody appalling. What makes it worse is that the judge is a women and said in court that the girl "probably agreed to have sex with the rapists". How can a 10 year old possibly consent to be raped?

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7136269.stm

It's awful. I heard someone from an aboriginal campaign group arguing that it wasn't fair to judge because of all the deprivation that aboriginals have suffered. I'm sure the deprivation point is valid generally but it was the wrong case to choose to make the point. Made me really angry actually.

You don't hear jewish people saying that they are entitled to rape 10 year olds because of the holocaust...

No one has any excuse for this behaviour. Ever.

Sorry, Cloudatlas, how would you like me to have toned it down? The title makes it clear what the thread is about so you don't have to click on it if it offends your sensibilities.

cloudatlas - tis very simple nowadays to "ignore" threads that you may not like the look of - go to customise my mumsnet up there and opt to ignore the "in the news" topic, then you won't ever have to see anything on here that offends your sensibilities.

btw - tis a disgusting case and a ten year old can NEVER consent to sex, whatever the circumstances.

while commenting on their background does not entitle them to be excused or condoned for their behaviour - unless you have been in an aboriginal settlement - you cannot possibly understand how terrible it is. However - there are plenty who have grown up in those sort of conditions and with a little help and support - moved on and up and made something of their lives both in and out of their community.

Unfortunately there is a dichotomy within the aboriginal community. Those who live in terrible conditions in indigenous communities rife with domestic violence, alcohol and substance abuse, abject poverty, violence in general and the list goes on.

We then have another group who are highly educated, are in fact judges, lawyers and very well off - not affected by conditions that others live in.

There are those as in any society - who sit back and blame it all on everyone else and those who get out there and get on with it.

There is derision from some aboriginal people against their own members who are educated, who choose to leave the communities and try and educate themselves and participate in mainstream society - they are called 'try hard whites' for example.

So as I said earlier - we all call for the government to get involved and then when they do - they are accused of being racist, accused by some sectors of the community of sticking their nose in where it is not wanted or needed of trying to be paternalistic.

So what is the answer??

I also read another interesting comment in the paper today ( where reader's can post their comments.) everyone is focusing on the judge and the prosecutor and so on - what about the men who perpetrated this crime.

As this stage the sentence is being appealed and there is an investigation into the case.

As to the statement that gang rape is common here in Aus and that there is a clear message that gang rape is okay cause you'll get away with it - not true - yes we have two cases here where that appears to have happened - how many more have been successfully prosecuted. Please don't tar all aussie men by the actions of a few.

it is a very very tragic case which has ruined the life of a little girl - but sadly she is not alone and violence and abuse is rife in those communities - more often than not fueled by alcohol and substance abuse. As someone said earlier there have been moves to declare communities alcohol free zones and to ban the sale of alcohol - which in some cases has led to a reduction in the violence.

IT has since come to light that one of the men involved was in fact the son of the mayor of that community??!?!?! Makes his refusal to comment the other night on the news far easier to understand now.

beggars belief.

I'm really shocked and angry at this. Children who have experienced sexual abuse as this girl seems to have 3 yrs ago can become over sexualised because they are taught that it is their currency. She may well have agreed to have sex with these men but could that ever be seen as consent? All the more reason then for this child to be protected and for these men to have the full power of sentencing thrown at them as a punishment to them and a strong message to Australia.
Why was she returned to a situation where she could be abused again?

consent is irrelevant, she was 10!
Very bad case

eidsvold your post 22;07 sent chills down my spine.

So you (the gvt) park them in cages and they sit on their ass all they doing nothing and when something awfull like this happens we come up with "it's tragic" but unavoidable since when the govt tries to do smthg they are accused of being paternalistic?

Great! See the results? Wrecked lives.

Coverage here in NZ (from a good news source rather than the Sun equivalent) said that the girl had previously been raped at age 7, contracted syphilis and was placed with a white family where she stayed until social workers removed her and placed her back with the aborinigal community. Allegedly she was well looked after, loved and thriving where she was placed. It was after she returned that she was raped. As somebody has already posted the best interest of the child is not always with people from their background. Not all the rapists were underage, one was 24.
While I am not knocking social services who do a hard job, you have to question the officers or policy makers who take a child from an aparant loving and caring home and return them to a community who have already abused them. IMO they are as much to blame.

Elizabetth, nowhere did I, or anybody else, say that gang rape was a cultural practice of Aboriginies.

I said that the betrothal of underage girls to older men was a cultural practice of some Aboriginal groups (there are many, many tribes, it's not one unified culture). This is documented - there was a big court case about it in the Northern Territory early this year involving a 13-ish year old girl who had been "promised" to (and subsequently raped by) a fifty- or sixty-something man.

I know it's an emotive subject, but please read the discussion carefully before grasping the wrong end of the stick.

So what exactly does that have to do with this particular case ninedragons? Why bring it up if you don't think there's a connection?

And I'm pretty sure there's plenty of sexual abuse of girl children in the white population by older men, but people don't call that a cultural practice, even though it is, they call it a crime.

I think we are all agreeing that this is wrong though, right?

Elizabeth, nobody here is being racist.
We are acknowledging and enquiring and discussing a shocking phenomenon (which I am now definitely choosing to call apartheid) that is highlited by this case.

What is appaling is that the Australian governement so far has done exactly what you are deploring:
Burying their head in the sand because they don't want to sound patronising and letting these practices go on because they may be "more acceptable" in that community.
Bullshit!

this really is shocking and tragic that poor girl

PS: was not shouting at you, just gennerally pissed off

There was a huge case fairly recently involving the Pitcairn Islands in the back of beyond.

Anyone remember it? The history is that of the Mutiny on the Bounty in the late eighteenth century. The mutineers absconded, and finally settled on Pitcairn Island with their South Seas women.

The descendants of the mutineers, including Christian Fletcher, live there to this day. Everyone on the island is closely related. They descend from a handful of the survivors of the mutineers.

NZ authorities decided that young girls had been raped by their family members. And they had, but perhaps not in the way that we understand it. On Pitcairn Island, it was normal practice, and the girls were not unduly messed up by it. They didn't know anything different. When population levels are low, the human race will deviate.

Of course, none of this has any direct relevance to the OP, but it has some relevance. It is food for thought, if nothing else.

.. and I meant Fletcher Christian

The point is Slim that the Australian government lets these practices go on in all communities. I already linked to the Werribee gang rape case where the youths got away with it.

Another example is Australian sports teams who appear to be notorious:

www.ffasa.org/hpages.asp?PageID=26

The apartheid that Aboriginal Australians live under is also shocking too though, I agree.

I mention it, Elizabetth, because two different things happened to the girl: 1) underage sex and 2) gang rape.

ONE of these things is, in SOME Aboriginal communities, considered acceptable.

Point taken.thx for the link.

Sibble - Allegedly there was a real beef about the placement with foster parents as they were white (for want of a better term) and some people were saying that we had returned to the days of the stolen generation - that it was not appropriate to foster her outside of her cultural group.

Chills down your spine why? The terrible tragedy is that she is not alone by any means.

this is what the previous government intended to do

So what is your solution - the govt removes children from families for their protection?!?! and they are accused of harking back to a terrible time of the stolen generation or denying their cultural and ethnic heritage OR the govt leaves them in their community to be sensitive to their cultural and ethnic heritage and they suffer terribly - because it is very difficult to work within the communities and be accepted within an aboriginal community. Just because you are an aboriginal does not mean you will be accepted - it depends on your language group, your alliances, your traditional enemies.

It is a terrible terrible tragedy and I am not saying in anyway it is excusable.

Let's not forget in blaming the system we are ignoring the fact that these are young men - adult men who must take responsibility for their actions.

Can I just reiterate - the majority of Australian men - indigenous or not - are not into gang raping children, do not see it as acceptable behaviour and I do not see why a message needs to be sent to Australia.... it needs to be sent to those people - regardless of ethnicity that this behaviour will not be tolerated.

interesting reading from young Australian of the year

eidsvold - the point I was making was that where there is a suitable family from the same community to place a child with that is without doubt the best place for them. This girl had already been placed and was allegedly happy with a 'white' family. To remove her (and I am aware of the Stolen Generation) is IMO wrong and those responsible are accountable. Of course there is no simple answer, the govt is damned if they do and damned if they don't. I also strongly believe that of course those responsible should be held accountable, there is no excuse for what they did. The judge has seriously messed up, sending a message and even setting a precedent that this is acceptable behaviour and of course it's not.

I agree you can compare the Pitcairn case. Much of the community was in uproar and closed ranks on the investigation as they couldn't see anything wrong with what had happened. It was the norm.

In the same way that here in NZ we have one of the highest incidences of child abuse and death in the western world. I am not being racist when stating the fact that Pacific Islanders and Maori families are over represented in the figures. We have had a few months of what feels like media bombardment of children admitted to our major children's hospital or being murdered by family members or 'carers'. Only today a father charged with killing his baby twins has been released on bail amidst huge controvercy. Last week he had to be returned to custody as the maori community he was bailed to refused to have him stay. He has previously breached bail on a number of occasions.

There is no simple answer to any of this, it is a complex issue of accepted practice by some (not all) of a community and social problems. It is not isolated to the aborigines by any stretch of the imagination. Abuse in it's many forms is rife and only a small number and of horrific of cases make world news.

I'm not Australian so would not dare recommend anything. Just being nosy and trying to understand.
thx for the new links. very informative.Exacctlly what I was looking for.

I know, I'm very naive.
It's sad.I gues very little will be done in the end.It's not like it's really a timebomb. The demographics are not threatening like they were in South Africa for instance.

Hopefully "white" and non white communities can just agree that it's got to do with misery/deprivation like everywhere else in the world?
The begining of the answer is maybe just actually allocating the money and deploying the energy to do the right thing.

Can you say "Can of Worms"?

There's interesting debate here too atm whether Labor recently won the Australian elections not because they were going to be any better but more to do with Australians wanting John Howard out. His recent attempt to intervene/do something about problems with the aborigine settlements being one issue people were not all happy about. Our elections are next year and it is argued we will see a change of government too (and the polls seem to support this) again not because the Libs necessarily are offering more (in fact we're not sure what they are offering!) but that NZ is unhappy with the Labor govt.

I'd be interested whether Aussies on here think Howard was wrong.