Breaking the Silence about White Australian Men’s Abuse of Children
By Marcus Waters
I have seen firsthand how child sexual abuse is rife in every part of the Australian community – but only sometimes is that abuse reported in full colour. It probably won’t surprise you if I say that I’ve had to deal with significant sexual violence and trauma within my Aboriginal family. But that’s also been true within my non-Indigenous family. So why is it so common to see headlines about “Indigenous sex abuse” – and so rare to see the same language used about white abusers? A common face of abuse The Royal Commission on institutionalised child sex abuse is shining a light on dark corners of systematic abuse of Australian kids over many generations. In the vast majority of the terrible cases we’ve heard about, the perpetrators and those who protected them have been seemingly upstanding, often senior, male community leaders. Old white men, in other words. Yet how often have you seen their racial background or skin colour highlighted in the reporting of the Royal Commission? That’s why, rather than write yet another article examining the claims of systematic child sexual abuse within Australia’s Indigenous communities, I’ve chosen to take a closer look at the systematic sexual exploitation that is an undeniable part of white Australian culture. From sex tourists to abuse at home In October, the Sydney Morning Herald’s Michael Bachelard broke a story revealing that Indonesia had become the number one destination for Australian child sex tourists – men known locally in Bali as bule, meaning a white foreigner. This is only part of the hidden underbelly of sexual abuse occurring within white Australian communities, which even when exposed are typically discussed without any racial overtones. Earlier this year, The Weekend Australian’s Cameron Stewart wrote a revealing feature on Asian slaves to the Australian sex industry, including grim details such as: All but one of the 20 girls and boys under the age of 15 who are here tonight have been raped, mostly by foreigners, some of them Westerners and possibly Australians. Stewart also reported that trafficking of women and children – to countries including Australia – “plays a sizable role in the economies of developing countries” across southeast Asia. As human rights lawyer Anne Gallagher comments: Cheap labour, cheap sex and cheap goods are woven into the fabric of our economy, our community and our individual lives within Australia. Stories like these are important. Yet too often, the fact that the abusers in these stories are not just western men, but white western men, goes unremarked. It certainly gives another insight into Andrew Forrest’s claims of some young Aboriginal girls trading sex acts with miners for less than a dollar. Is it really such a jump to assume that what’s happening in the third world outside of Australia isn’t also happening in third-world Australia? A culture of sexualisation The most comprehensive study on sexual activity among Australian teenagers is La Trobe University’s National Survey of Australian Secondary Students and Sexual Health. The survey shows that even though 15 years is below the legal age of consent, in Grade 10 (where the greater majority of students are 15-years-old) experience of sexual touching within males was about 64% and females about 60%. Those who have had sexual intercourse with at least one partner totalled 45% (males) and 53% (females). That is more than half of all Australian girls having intercourse before the end of Grade 10. Many of these girls are under age – so why is there no intervention or scrutiny in these non-Indigenous communities? Only 6.5% of the boys and 4.2% of these girls had stated they had not had sexual relations of any kind. That – no matter how you look at it – is an epidemic. The March edition of The Australian Woman’s Weekly included an article by Jordan Baker, Why girls are having sex at 12. The article says girls as young as 12 are shaving their pubic hair because they don’t want to be teased by boys the same age who are regularly watching porn, and who demand the same hairless bodies they see online. Race is never mentioned in the article – so it’s safe to assume that we’re talking about trends among non-Indigenous Australians. And apparently, among non-Indigenous Australian teenagers: … oral sex doesn’t count as sex … sending nude pictures via text or Facebook is the new flirting. As a doctor and specialist in youth sexuality, Michael Grose, said: My generation went behind the shed and had a smoke. It’s been put to me that oral sex at school is like smoking. That’s extreme but I think extremes explain the norm. And there’s money to be made from sexualising girls aged 8 to 14. The whitefellas even have term for it: “tween fashion”, which promotes sexualised images of girls and women through popular music, teen culture and clothing for the purpose of selling products. Sex certainly sells – but I agree with the critics who call it a form of “corporate paedophilia”. Colour blindness International research has shown that people who suffer the worst abuse are often in positions of helplessness or poverty. The reality is that the majority of my own Aboriginal people who have had to deal with abuse are struggling with these same issues of uncertainty, poverty and alienation that we know compound sexual violence and abuse. Even as an Aboriginal teenager growing up in this country, I understood that the violence and abuse I was suffering was not the only problem I was facing. Instead, it was partly the result of the many problems my family and extended community faced. We were taught to care for one another, no matter how bad the hurt – or the harm some in the family did to others. In contrast, within my white family there was just a deadly silence and denial. I can’t help but wonder: what would happen if white Australian children, women and men spoke up about the hidden abuse in their families, the way that Aboriginal people increasingly are doing? I honestly believe if this was to happen, the true statistics of those suffering would send shockwaves through this country. And I see the silence that I’ve witnessed within my white family mirrored in the way that the predominantly non-Indigenous news media reports on abuse. This month, a white male Australian, Thomas James Johnson, faced court in South Australia over child porn images dating back a decade. Johnson was caught when he showed images of girls aged between five and nine to a female masseuse. She reported him to police after he tried to proposition her into having a threesome with him and a 12-year-old girl. Yet Johnson escaped going to jail. And although he was reported as a “pervert” in the Adelaide Advertiser, Johnson’s race and his skin colour never got a mention.
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