Our Greatest Challenge

Hannah McGlade''s book bravely addresses the complex and fraught issue of Aboriginal child abuse. She argues that Aboriginal child sexual assault has been formed within the entrenched societal forces of racism, colonisation and patriarchy, yet cast in the Australian public domain as an Aboriginal ''problem'', with controversial government responses critiqued as racist and paternalistic. McGlade highlights that non-Aboriginal society has yet to acknowledge the traumatic impacts of the sexual assault on Aboriginal children which was part and parcel of the European project of ''civilisation''. She provides detailed analysis of the legal systems response. While child sexual assault is a criminal offence, the Aboriginal experience of the law is tainted. Despite reforms to the law, the courtroom experience is based on re-victimisation and trauma which prevents the fundamental principle of equality before the law. McGlade believes that we should be guided by Indigenous human rights concepts and international Indigenous responses in addressing the problem. In doing so she believes that we can help to stem the harm to future generations.