Mission & Justice

12/6/08

Queensland’s chief justice will make public a decision about whether nine males who raped a 10-year-old girl in remote north Queensland deserved harsher punishment. All nine offenders walked free after sentencing last year, sparking a public outcry about whether they should have been ordered to spend time behind bars. Queensland Attorney-General Kerry Shine launched an appeal to have the offenders jailed or placed in detention, arguing Cairns District Court Judge Sarah Bradley erred during the sentencing hearing.

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Catherine Deveny; 11/6/08

This is not going to be an easy column to read… I’m against capital punishment. But, like most people, as far as child sexual abuse is concerned my gut instinct is kill the bastard. It’s not pretty, but it’s true. We agree that it’s an abuse of human rights to take the life of another person. But the selfish and destructive act of child sexual abuse is so evil on so many levels that many feel it transcends this basic human right and the abuser forfeits the right to live, even if it is a life behind bars supported by our taxes.Deep down, I suspect most of us believe child sexual abuse is an act of spiritual theft on such a grand scale that it deserves the ultimate punishment. But the law is the law and in a civilised society you don’t just go around killing people. When adults justify fulfilling their sexual desires above the most basic ethics and morals, duty of care, respect for another human being and the sanctity of childhood, rage and revenge can overwhelm our core beliefs.

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Duke Helfand; 9/6/08

An Australian bishop has rejected demands by 12 leading Catholic bishops that he cancel a month-long tour of the US to promote his controversial book about sexual abuse by the clergy. Following direction from the Vatican, the bishops have asked Geoffrey Robinson, a retired auxiliary bishop of Sydney, to avoid their dioceses because of his “problematic positions” on priestly celibacy and other issues. In his book, Confronting Power And Sex In The Catholic Church: Reclaiming The Spirit Of Jesus, Bishop Robinson argues that the church’s celibacy requirement has contributed to the sex abuse crisis. He openly criticises the papacy for failing to provide leadership, and wonders whether the church has been more concerned with managing the scandal than confronting it.

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Leonie Wood; 7/6/08

The Australian Crime Commission’s taskforce investigating sexual abuse in indigenous communities is fighting a landmark court battle against a Northern Territory health clinic over its refusal to give up private medical records of several children. It is believed to be the first serious challenge to the ACC’s National Indigenous Violence and Child Abuse Intelligence Taskforce, which has coercive powers to obtain details about the incidence of child abuse, neglect and violence in remote communities. The clinic, which the Federal Court has ordered cannot be named, claims the ACC is demanding sensitive information about children aged under 16 years who had sought advice about contraception but who it believes had not been sexually abused.

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6/6/08

Papua New Guinea is among countries that risk losing aid from the United States of America for failing to make significant efforts to eliminate human trafficking last year. This is revealed in a US State Department report released this week. The annual “Trafficking in Persons” report – which covers both forced labour as well as the sex trade – placed PNG, Fiji and Moldova along with Algeria, Cuba, Iran, Kuwait, Myanmar, North Korea, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Syria in its bottom ranking. That classification in the report, which covers 170 countries and ranks 153 of them, means the United States could withhold aid that is not humanitarian or trade-related.

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6/5/08

More mothers and young female students were infected with HIV/AIDS compared to sex workers in the Morobe Province. The Morobe Provincial AIDS Council said yesterday records it has compiled over the last few years indicate the rate of infection among mothers in stable marriages and female students in secondary and tertiary schools was rising at a very alarming rate. “The figures we have showed that over the same period, the rate of infection among sex workers in the province has stabilised, there is no marked increase at all,” the provincial response co-ordinator Charles Pepe said. Mr Pepe said the trend of infection was brought by the rise in the cost of living in town and that married men were involved in promiscuous and unsafe sex in Morobe. “We believe that many young girls between the ages of 15 to 25 years engaged in unsafe sexual activities with men for money because times are hard. “The men pay them for sex so that the girls can pay their school feels or buy much needed items to look after themselves,” he said.

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6/5/08

The Jordan River Foundation (JRF) marked the National Day for Child Safety, recognised on June 6, with an appeal to governmental and non-governmental organisations to enhance child safety programmes in order to combat child abuse. “As Her Majesty Queen Rania has highlighted… we cannot overstate the importance of keeping the issue of child safety and protection at the top of agendas of both the Jordanian governmental and nongovernmental organisations,” JRF Director General Valentina Qussisiya said in a statement released by the foundation on Thursday. Qussisiya underlined the pioneering efforts of Queen Rania, the foundation’s head and patron, to change policies and mindsets and raise awareness of child safety.

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Gloria Esguerra Melencio; 6/6/08

 The Filipino woman who reportedly retracted a claim that she was held against her will by her employer and raped by four men described the retraction as a sheet of paper, written in Arabic, that she had signed under duress in order to expedite her repatriation. Now back home in Quirino Province, the woman — speaking to a local human rights group through her husband — stands by her accusation: that she was gang raped in Qatif on May 19, 2008 in the presence of her employer and that she was held against her will. The overseas Filipino group Migrante International recently called for an investigation into what happened to the Filipino woman, known as Jessa, who, according to the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), later said her accusations were product of her “imagination.”

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Romulus Masiu; 5/6/08

Bougainvillean-made pornographic materials are being freely distributed on the streets of Buka town with the intention to expose the “porn stars”.These porn materials are being duplicated and widely circulated to government authorities and individuals. It is understood police in the region have also been given these materials. Yesterday some youths approached The National’s Buka office with a copy of a CD containing images of a senior Bougainvillean public servant and two local women. The images showed the three in nude scenes. The images were captured and turned into a video slide show and distributed in town with the intention of all to view and know who is involved in porn production, the youths stated. “It’s about time we expose some of our corrupt leaders because, nowadays, it seems that there a two sets of laws - one for the grassroots and one for the big-shots. “When the grassroots do wrong, police are quick to arrest and lock them up. However, when people in high offices do wrong, they are still walking around freely,” the youths told The National.

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Ashleigh Wilson; 5/6/08

The ABC’s Lateline has been given the all-clear over its coverage of the troubled central Australian Aboriginal community of Mutitjulu after a “cynical” campaign against the program by residents and Northern Territory Labor politicians. In a 47-page report, the ABC’s independent complaints review panel found no breach of editorial policies in 29 out of 30 complaints against the program, which eventually led to the former Howard government’s intervention into NT Aboriginal communities. The complaints were lodged by residents of Mutitjulu, a small community in the shadow of Uluru, following Lateline stories in mid-2006 that reported how girls were trading sex for petrol.

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