Little Children are Sacred is the report of a Board of Inquiry into the Protection of Aboriginal Children from Sexual Abuse commissioned by the government of the Northern Territory, Australia, was publicly released on 15 June 2007. The inquiry, chaired by Rex Wild and Patricia Anderson, was established in August 2006 and investigated ways to protect Aboriginal children from sexual abuse. The Wild/Anderson report is the latest commissioned by the Australian government to investigate this topic, the first report that raised public attention was written by Janet Stanley in 2003.
The report concluded that sexual abuse of children in Aboriginal communities had reached crisis levels, demanding that it "be designated as an issue of urgent national significance by both the Australian and Northern Territory governments."
The release of the report prompted the Australian Government to launch the Northern Territory National Emergency Response on 21 June 2007, which is in the process of being replaced by the Stronger Futures Policy of 2011.
The Clare Martin government responded denying inaction and released its detailed response Closing the Gap of Indigenous Disadvantage: Generational Plan of Action in August 2007
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Famous quotes containing the words children and/or sacred:
“However strongly they resist it, our kids have to learn that as adults we need the companionship and love of other adults. The more direct we are about our needs, the easier it may be for our children to accept those needs. Their jealousy may come from a fear that if we adults love each other we might not have any left for them. We have to let them know that it’s a different kind of love.”
—Ruth Davidson Bell. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 3 (1978)
“O native country, repossessed by thee!
For, rather than I’ll to the West return,
I’ll beg of thee first here to have mine urn.
Weak I am grown, and must in short time fall;
Give thou my sacred relics burial.”
—Robert Herrick (1591–1674)