ROHAN SULLIVAN, SYDNEY
Revelations that nine people who raped a 10-year-old girl had escaped prison sentences were met with outrage in Australia yesterday and prompted a review of sexual assault cases in remote Aboriginal communities.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was "horrified" by the result of the trial of a group of juveniles and young men who admitted the rape of the child in Aurukun, a settlement in northern Queensland, in 2005. District Court Judge Sarah Bradley placed six offenders, who were juveniles at the time, on probation and recorded no convictions against them, and suspended six-month prison sentences for the other three offenders, aged 17, 18 and 26.
Bradley told the offenders it was illegal to have sex with anyone under 16, but the victim "was not forced and she probably agreed to have sex with all of you".
Aboriginal leaders said the result was too lenient and demanded Bradley be sacked.
Queensland's attorney general Kerry Shine said the government would appeal against the sentences, and state premier Anna Bligh announced a review of all sexual assault cases in Aboriginal communities on Cape York, the region where the assault occurred.
The case comes less than six months after the government seized power from authorities in the Outback Northern Territory after a report that child sex abuse was rampant in Aboriginal societies. It restricted sales of alcohol and distribution of pornography.
"I'm disgusted and appalled by the reports on this case," Rudd said. "I am horrified by cases like this, involving sexual violence against women and children. My attitude is one of zero tolerance."
Queensland Aboriginal activist Boni Robertson said there was no excuse for the rape, or the leniency of the sentences. "There is nothing culturally, there is nothing morally, there is nothing socially and there is definitely nothing legally that would ever allow this sort of decision to be made," she said.-AP
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