Branding girls for s*x

Some have argued that Indigenous girls mature earlier. It’s more likely that, living in dysfunctional communities riddled with pornography, alcohol and violence, they are primed for sex at ages considered unacceptable in the white community. And signs of puberty are hardly an indication that a girl is emotionally ready for sex.

Early sexual activity is often a sign of sexual abuse. The first person who interfered with one of these girls set her up further abuse because of the interruption of normal healthy sexual development.

Yet Queensland Health has admitted that it doesn’t report all cases of sexual abuse. Where is the duty of care to these children? A synthetic progesterone rod in shoved in their arms and that’s it? One wonders what the Child Safety Department is actually for.

Getting girls fixed up so they don’t get pregnant can actually make them more vulnerable to sexual abuse.

Justice Stephen Southwood in the Northern Territory case, commented that the abuse of young girls was prevalent in remote communities and needed to be stopped. "Young girls … are entitled to be safe and to live with their mental integrity and dignity unharmed," he said.

Temporarily sterilising girls without addressing exploitation is hardly dignified.

Why are girls left so unprotected? Why aren’t they removed? Are we so inured to unrelenting reports of the sexual abuse of young Indigenous girls that we have stopped caring? Sexual victimisation has to be stopped. There needs to be an inquiry, now.