Guardian Unlimited: Aborigines face ban on alcohol and porn
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Aborigines face ban on alcohol and porn
James Sturcke and agencies
Thursday June 21 2007
The Guardian
Pornography and alcohol will be banned for Aborigines in Australia's Northern Territory, the country's prime minister, John Howard, announced today, after a report found that "rivers of grog" were leading to rampant child abuse.
"This is a national emergency," Mr Howard told parliament. "We're dealing with a group of young Australians for whom the concept of childhood innocence has never been present."
The sale, possession and transportation of alcohol would be banned for six months on Aboriginal-owned land in the Northern Territory, Mr Howard said, and sales would be reviewed after that.
Some Aboriginal leaders immediately attacked the plan as "disgusting and paternalistic", saying they were not consulted and that they objected to restrictions on how indigenous people spend their welfare benefits.
The child abuse report, Little Children Are Sacred, released last week, found drinking was a key contributor to the collapse of Aboriginal culture and neglect of children, and created opportunities for paedophiles.
The report said hardcore pornography was rife in Aboriginal communities and available to children, who had become desensitised to sex with adults. The sale and possession of pornography is also to be banned.
"A river of grog [alcohol] is killing people and destroying our communities," Pat Anderson, who co-chaired the inquiry, told reporters last week. "There is a strong association between alcohol abuse, violence and sexual abuse of children."
About 60,000 of Australia's roughly 400,000 Aborigines live in the Northern Territory. They are consistently the nation's most disadvantaged group, with far higher rates of unemployment, alcohol and drug abuse, and domestic violence. Their life expectancy is 17 years shorter than that of other Australians.
Alcohol kills an Aborigine every 38 hours and accounts for a quarter of deaths in the Northern Territory.
Under Mr Howard's plan, new restrictions would be placed on welfare payments for Aborigines, forcing parents to spend at least half of the money on essential items such as food - a measure meant to prevent wasting money on alcohol and gambling. Family welfare payments would also be linked to children's school attendance.
Aboriginal leaders said it was the kind of government behaviour that disenfranchised their people and created the problems in the first place.
"I'm absolutely disgusted by this patronising government control," said Mitch, who uses one name and is a member of a government board helping Aborigines who were taken from their parents under past assimilation laws. "And tying drinking with welfare payments is just disgusting.
"If they're going to do that, they're going to have to do that with every single person in Australia, not just black people."
The report said banning alcohol sales in some Aboriginal communities had dramatically reduced sexual abuse and violence: "Alcohol is being used as a bartering tool to gain sex from children, either by offering it to the children themselves or in some cases to adult members of their family."
One Aboriginal woman from the Yolngu tribe said "white man's water is a curse" and called for alcohol outlets to be closed.
"Eradicate this curse that is killing us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually," she wrote in a letter published in the report.
The report said: "Many of the Aboriginal people spoken to by the inquiry were not aware of legal issues such as age of consent."
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