Time for action
MATT Cunningham’s article ‘When is enough enough?’ again highlights systemic failings of our legal, child protection and family support systems.
The harrowing evidence examined by the Coroner last week regarding apparent suicides and possible sexual assault of three teenage girls in the Top End again shows systemic failures that have been aware of for decades.
We know that child sexual abuse and sexual violence are notoriously difficult crimes to investigate and prosecute. In 70 to 85 per cent of cases, the perpetrator is known to the victim, which makes it even more difficult for victims to report and seek help.
Most victims struggle to disclose sexual abuse, often taking refuge in silence because of profound feelings of powerlessness, shame, guilt and fear. The consequences are horrific and follow children into adulthood.
We know the current system creates multiple barriers that make it difficult for victims, especially children and young people, to make disclosures and seek help. Too often children and young people fall victim to an adversarial legal system of loopholes, uncoordinated services and staff ill-prepared and inadequately trained to respond.
The frequent knee-jerk responses to media reports by politicians and policy makers – like calls to broaden mandatory reporting – have done little to improve child safety. They seem to be driven more by wanting to be seen to do something than by the evidence of what works.
Everyone has the right to be safe from violence and abuse.
There is good evidence of ‘what works’. A report from Council of Europe – Protecting Children from Sexual Violence: A Comprehensive Approach – addresses many of the issues in planning action against sexual violence. It advocates putting children front and centre, trauma-informed practice, prevention and reporting, rehabilitation and social integration of child victims, including child perpetrators and private/public partnerships, to eliminate sexual violence against children.
Children and young people – particularly Aboriginal children – need to be heard and empowered in a re-design of a system to better protect them.
A confidential children’s helpline is an evidence-based intervention to raise awareness, encourage disclosure, refer to services, and support access reporting mechanisms.
The underlying principle is the protection of children’s rights, to ensure they are treated with dignity and respect and supported to make formal reports and complaints.
We also need a child-friendly justice and support system for victims rather than a frightening adversarial legal system.
Barnahus (Children’s House) has been widely adopted across Europe. Barnahus brings together a multi-disciplinary team of specialists to respond to disclosure, investigation, prosecution and provision of therapeutic support under the one roof.
Barnahus services are located in a home-like setting, like a residential property, with child-friendly interview rooms, a medical examination room, separate observation room for the prosecution, defence and judge to attend formal interviews, which are conducted by a forensic child psychologist. There is usually only one interview which is recorded, court proceedings take place quickly and the child and family receive therapeutic support.
The persistent lack of sustained, carefully designed and targeted approaches deprives children of safety!
Aboriginal people do not shy away from this. It is not out of sight or out of mind for us. Despite numerous discussions, meetings, briefing papers, submissions advocating for evidence-based alternative approaches to the blunt instrument of mandatory reporting and a degraded adversarial legal system there has been little interest by decision-makers.
It’s time to look at the evidence and do things differently to support the health and safety of all children.