Govt backs 'intervention' in aborigine communities

Australia’s government today defended a programme aimed at stamping out child sex abuse among Aborigines after a United Nations expert said the radical restrictions it imposed on minority communities amounted to human rights violations.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin acknowledged the programme was controversial, but said the threat to children could not be ignored.

“When it comes to human rights, the most important human right that I feel as a minister I have to confront is the need to protect the rights of the most vulnerable, particularly children, and for them to have a safe and happy life,” Ms Macklin told reporters in Melbourne.

“These are the rights that I think need to be balanced against other human rights.”

Ms Macklin’s comments came one day after the UN special rapporteur on indigenous human rights, James Anaya, said his 12-day fact-finding tour of Australia revealed that the Aboriginal minority still suffers from “entrenched racism”.

Mr Anaya said he was particularly concerned by a programme that has imposed tough restrictions on Aborigines in the Northern Territory – including bans on alcohol and hard-core pornography – in response to a report that found child sex abuse was rampant in remote indigenous communities.

But others today called Mr Anaya’s criticism a justified response to a failed, paternalistic set of policies.

“I think it’s very unfair, and it should be stopped immediately,” Barbara Shaw, an Aboriginal leader who led a campaign to get the UN to examine the programme, said.

Aborigines, who make up about 2% of the country’s 22 million-strong population, are the poorest, unhealthiest and most disadvantaged minority, with an average life span 12 years shorter than other Australians.

In recent decades, billions of dollars have been thrown into community programmes, housing and education, but living conditions in remote Aboriginal settlements remain abysmal.

In June 2007, a government-commissioned inquiry concluded that child sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities had become an issue of “urgent national significance”.

The government suspended its own anti-discrimination law, so it could ban alcohol and hard-core pornography in indigenous communities and restrict how Aborigines spend their welfare cheques.

The restrictions do not apply to Australians of other races.

Yesterday, Mr Anaya said the tough rules – known in Australia as the “intervention” – were a violation of the nation’s international obligations on human and indigenous rights.