AUSTRALIA
The Australian
Human rights campaigner Tom Calma was ‘helpless’ when told of sexual abuse allegations: inquiry
SEPTEMBER 23, 2014
Amos Aikman
Northern Correspondent
Darwin
PROMINENT indigenous human rights campaigner Tom Calma was told of horrific allegations of sexual abuse at a Darwin missionary home that were never followed up, a royal commission has heard.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, sitting in Darwin, was told the alleged abuse was reported to Dr Calma in the 1970s, while he was working for the Northern Territory government.
The alleged abuse occurred at Retta Dixon Home for children and girls, which operated inside Darwin’s Bagot Aboriginal reserve between 1946 and 1980.
The allegations were made by a witness referred to only as AKV, who said he had informed Dr Calma of the abuse at the hands of “house parent” Don Henderson when he was about 10 years old. He said Dr Calma was working for the Northern Territory government “welfare mob” at the time.
AKV initially did not want to name the man “because he’s in such high standing in the commonwealth government and connection with the United Nations, I don’t want to shame his family”, but under questioning named him as Dr Calma.
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