AUSTRALIA
ABC – PM
MARK COLVIN: At the child abuse royal commission in Darwin, a former resident of a home for Aboriginal children and young women has described her stay as like living in a “jailhouse”,
Another resident of the Retta Dixon Home says she was chained up if she did anything wrong.
The opening day of the commission’s case study of the Retta Dixon Home has heard from several former residents.
It’s the first case study to investigate institutional responses to wholly Indigenous people.
Senior counsel assisting the commission this morning warned of harrowing stories.
The victims gave evidence of serious physical and sexual abuse at the hands of “house-parents”, people who were supposed to be providing care. …
WILL OCKENDEN: The Retta Dixon Home ran from after World War II to 1980, as a place for young mixed-race Aboriginal people, removed from families as part of the Stolen Generations.
The Home was operated by a group of Christian missionaries, then known as the Aborigines Inland Mission or AIM, but now go by the name Australian Indigenous Ministries.
The group will face questions on how it handled allegations of sexual abuse and its policies on handling such complaints, later on in the week.
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