Indigenous Children Need Sympathy Too
Letters To The Age | September 1, 2007
The story about three-year-old Qian Xun Xue abandoned by her father, with the uncertain fate of her mother for whom she pines (The Age, 18/9), naturally evoked sympathy and concern for mother and daughter. However, readers' feeling of disquiet would have been compounded when they read Claire Smith's heartbreaking article (Opinion, 18/9) detailing the suicides of young Aborigines in the Northern Territory and expressing her disappointment in every Australian who does not do what they can to defend these young ones.
Smith's call to shame our politicians into making the care of Aboriginal children an election issue will be ignored unless the public is shaken by images far more devastating than a little girl standing alone on a railway station, such as photographs (with permission) of the teenagers who ended their lives of despair. In this regard, The Age has an honourable role to play.
Keith McEwan, Bendigo
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