"Traditional marriage systems promote sexual abuse"
The recent Northern Territory Little Children are Sacred Report debunked this myth noting, ‘the media has highlighted a few cases where sexual abuse of a child has occurred in the context of an Aboriginal traditional marriage in the Northern Territory’.38 The Inquiry did not come across any evidence to show that children were being regularly abused within, and as a result of, traditional marriage practices. This was despite the fact that in many places such practices still existed.
These practices do not exist to provide young women for the sexual gratification of old men, but are a part of a complex system that has had many practical aspects. These include preventing inter-family marriage, and providing a system of custodianship to land, information and ceremonies.39
38 Anderson, P., Wild, R. Little Children are Sacred
39 Little Children are Sacred p. 68
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