They Say: Indigenous Children Up To Seven times More Likely to be Abused or Neglected

A new report shows that Aboriginal disadvantage is worse than previously thought, with indigenous children almost seven times more likely to be abused or neglected. This is despite a massive government effort to close the gap with the rest of the population.

The Productivity Commission report, ‘Overcoming Indigenous Disadvantage’, released every two years, found substantiated child abuse cases in the indigenous community more than doubled from 16 per 1000 children in 1999-2000 to 35 per 1000 children in 2007-08.

The report,  found that in the same period abuse cases among non-indigenous children increased from five per 1000 to six per 1000.

The government attributes most of the increase to greater reporting and detection, since the Commonwealth began its intervention into Northern Territory indigenous communities in 2007.

Since Kevin Rudd took office the government has allocated $4.6billion in new spending over six years on a suite of programs tackling health, education, early childhood development and a range of other areas for Indigenous Australians. This study is the first report card on how much progress has been made – and the results are disappointing to say the least.

Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said the figures were extremely serious and showed the nation faced a very big job in improving child protection.

“It is a good thing that it’s coming out from behind the shadows and that we’re able to make sure that where children need the protection of state community services organisation and laws that they are able to get those protections,” Ms Macklin said.

What do you do about a problem this big?

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