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January 24, 2009
In Indigenous Bodies in Borderlands Shino Konishi, Leah Lui-Chivizhe, and Lisa Slater make the following statement:
In Black Skin White Masks (1967) Franz Fanon claimed that ‘there are times when the black man is locked into his body’ ... Following the moral outcry generated by Nannette Rogers’ exposé on the prevalence of sexual abuse in remote Aboriginal communities on the ABC’s Lateline in May 2006....and the release of the Ampe Akelyernemane Meke Mekarle: 'Little Children are Sacred' Report (Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse 2007), Aboriginal people have been further 'locked' into their bodies. Despite the fact that domestic violence and sexual assault are widespread throughout Australia – a 2004 study finding that 48% of Australian women experience violence, and 34% sexual assault in their lifetimes (Sneddon, 2007) – and the Little
Children are Sacred Report found that 'a large number of perpetrators of abuse of Aboriginal children are not Aboriginal' (Behrendt, 2007: 17), sexual abuse has been pathologised as an exclusively Aboriginal problem.
They go on to say that The Federal Government's 2007 Emergency Response Northern Territory Intervention asserted not only the state's authority over ndigenous people's bodies, but also its assumption that Aboriginal people's moral deviance would be writ large on their bodies.
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