Aboriginal child abuse widespread - report

Canberra, Australia - Child sex abuse is widespread in Australia's remote Outback Aboriginal settlements where boys and girls trade sex for marijuana and gasoline for sniffing, a report found on Tuesday.

The South Australia state government report into child abuse in the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Lands is the latest evidence of endemic sexual mistreatment of Aboriginal children throughout Australia.

The report by retired judge Ted Mullighan found evidence of 141 cases of child sex abuse in the past 23 years on the APY Lands. There are today about 1 000 children of the Anangu tribe living in small villages there.

Most of the cases - 129 - were reported since 2000. That number reflected a greater tendency to report evidence of abuse, rather than an increasing prevalence, Mullighan found.

"It is likely that the general dysfunction of the communities, violence, drug and alcohol abuse, poverty, despair, disempowerment and hopelessness are significant factors" causing the abuse, he said.

Mullighan's found that girls as young as 12 had offered sexual favours for gasoline, but marijuana was the most popular substance for abuse there.

Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin said her government would immediately commit more than 19-million Australian dollars (about R136-million) to help fight child abuse in the desert communities.

State government reports have similarly found evidence of extraordinarily high rates of child sex abuse in Aboriginal communities throughout Australia.

Aborigines are a minority of 450 000 in Australia's population of 21 million. They are the poorest ethnic group in Australia and die on average 17 years younger than other Australians. - Sapa-AP