Signs of Child Abuse

katyclark(49)

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#incarceration

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452

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I'm not an expert on child abuse or its signs. I'm a schoolteacher. I know what I see.
Many years ago, I was working in a remote Aboriginal town. My students were 98% identifying as Aboriginal.
One day, not long after I'd started, I was told to expect a new student to join my class, a boy, aged 16, who was "returning." I didn't think anything of it and assumed he was returning to the area with his family, having been away.
So he joined my class. I knew his name, his records were still current. I approached him, having taken the roll, intending to ask him a few questions about what school he'd been attending, to ascertain what notes and assistance he might need to facilitate his learning.
I took one look at his face, noting the withdrawn, sullen look in his eyes. This boy was in anguish, his inner spirit in turmoil. I stopped dead in my tracks as I read the message in his face. No-one needed to tell me that this boy had been "away" in Juvey, or that he'd been sexually abused. It was written all over his face and in the turbulent storm clouds in his eyes. In the instant that I knew, the boy, too, knew that I knew. I wish that I'd been warned.
I felt nothing but sympathy for this boy. But he didn't want sympathy. He wanted anonymity. After hurling a volley of verbal abuse at me, he left the room. There was silence. I could tell that the other students knew what I did by their quiet demeanour and downcast eyes. We turned our attention to our books, I put on a content-related video, and no mention was made of the boy or his behaviour. I informed the appropriate channels, for his welfare, that he'd gone AWOL. He didn't come back to my class, or to school for a long time. I only saw him once more. I think he wrongly assumed that I'd been informed. I hadn't. If I had, I'd have been better prepared.
It is very dangerous to judge other people.
We have no idea what they have been through.
There are no easy solutions to some problems that are systemic and endemic, rooted in decisions made in the past. I do know, however, from statistics, that Aboriginal people are vastly overrepresented in the criminal justice system. While representing only 3% of the total population of Australia, they represent more than 28% of the prison population.(1) The effect of that on Aboriginal communities is profound.
The only control over anything that we have is what we choose to do right now.