CHILD PROTECTION
19/02/2013
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT (15:03): I seek leave to make a brief explanation before asking the minister representing the Minister for Education and Child Development questions regarding child abuse, including psychological abuse.
Leave granted.
The Hon. K.L. VINCENT: My office has been contacted by the family of a child whom I regard as being at severe risk. Since the first contact, news has come through that the child has been tested and found to have hepatitis C. I also understand that she has tested positive to HIV. In the midst of a cabinet reshuffle, it appears that this child is sinking through ever-widening cracks and her family are understandably desperate to help her.
I should clarify that statement, because while some of her family are desperate to help, one of her cousins is in fact engaged in a sexual relationship with her and has brought her from New South Wales to South Australia where they are living together in an on-site caravan park, sharing a bed. The child’s cousin is a 35-year-old man who has, I understand, been a prisoner on more than one occasion and who has a history of psychologically controlling vulnerable teenage women, and of fathering five children. He has had sex with his cousin knowing that he has hepatitis C and is HIV positive.
I was advised by the former minister for police that the matter had been forwarded to the police commissioner in December. I have received a request to obtain the child’s permission to share her information but her mother believes that, as her daughter is only 16 years of age, her consent does not need to be given. The mother is frantically hoping for some intervention to protect her child’s safety. Although it has been over two months since I first alerted the government to this matter, it has not brought about any change to the situation, and any reasonable person would, of course, despair. My questions to the minister are:
1.Can anything be done when a child with an intellectual disability is removed from her family home by her 35-year-old male cousin and taken interstate to be kept in a caravan?
2.Has this child been investigated as a school truant?
3.What has been done to investigate the domestic circumstances of this child?
4.What has been done to remove the child from the caravan park where she is living with her cousin?
5.Can the minister assure South Australians that situations such as this will in future be treated in an appropriate and timely manner?
The Hon. I.K. HUNTER (Minister for Sustainability, Environment and Conservation, Minister for Water and the River Murray, Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and Reconciliation) (15:06): I thank the honourable member for her most concerning question and I undertake to take that question to the Minister for Education and Child Development in another place and seek a response on her behalf.
