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12-12-07, 19:11
Geplaatst door The_Reporter
Leniency in rape case shocks Australians
SYDNEY: Australia has been rocked by the case of a 10-year-old indigenous girl who was gang-raped in her home community and the revelation that her nine rapists had not been given prison sentences, in part because the judge found that the victim "probably agreed" to have sex.
The case has prompted national introspection after it emerged that the court's leniency was only one of many institutional failures toward the victim.
"I'm disgusted and appalled by the reports that I've seen," the newly elected prime minister, Kevin Rudd, said Monday. "I am horrified by cases like this, involving sexual violence against women and children. My attitude is one of zero tolerance."
The case has also refocused national attention on the longstanding unresolved problems in Australia's indigenous communities and the ineffectiveness of government attempts to address them, particularly in the troubled Cape York peninsula on Australia's northeastern tip, where the rapes took place.
"The picture emerging from the gang rape is of a bureaucratic culture that accepts a lesser standard of rights and responsibilities for indigenous people on Cape York," the newspaper The Australian, which first reported the story on Monday, said in an editorial Tuesday.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/12/11/asia/australia.php
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