The investigation into the alleged rape of a six-year-old girl in a remote Aboriginal community in far north Queensland is expected to be lengthy, police say.
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The young girl was allegedly attack by four male teenagers in a house on Mornington Island in the Gulf of Carpentaria on the afternoon of April 15.
She was taken to Townsville Hospital, where she remains in a stable condition.
Her alleged attackers were flown to Mt Isa the following day, where they are being questioned by detectives.
It is understood the teens will remain in the care of the Department of Child Safety while the investigation continues.
Acting Inspector Kelly Harvey, from Mt Isa's Child Protection and Investigation Unit, said on Thursday the police investigation was likely to be a long process.
“Charges are not expected to be laid against the four boys until a thorough investigation is completed,” Inspector Harvey said.
“The investigation process will be a lengthy one.”
In 2007, a 10-year-old girl was gang raped by nine males, including six aged between 13 and 16, in the community of Aurukun.
The case highlighted dysfunction in the remote settlement and sparked reforms, including the introduction of live-in child safety officers in troublesome communities.
Since then, state and federal governments have spent $100 million on the Aurukun, Coen, Mossman Gorge and Hope Vale communities.
However, Queensland's Child Protection Commission of Inquiry, led by Child Protection Commissioner Tim Carmody last year, revealed the rate of child abuse and neglect “notifications” in the state's 19 discrete communities had increased 35 per cent.
The rate of child protection "notifications" in these communities remains more than 19 times the state average, according to the commission's final report, Taking Responsibility: A Roadmap for Queensland Child Protection.
One in every two indigenous children in Queensland are known to the Department of Child Safety – up from one in four in 2007-08, the report shows.
The department investigated 645 “suspected child abuse and neglect” cases between July and December 2012.
More than 400 separate incidents of violent child protection matters, which required police intervention, occurred in the same six month period.
Police records revealed almost three-quarters of incidents occurred within a home, while two-thirds of perpetrators were under the influence of alcohol at the time of the offence.
“Substantiated” SCAN incidents involving indigenous children increased from 1622 in 2007–08, to 2002 in 2011–12.
Of those, 386 involved physical harm, 98 sexual harm, 533 emotional harm and in 985 cases, “neglect”.
Mr Carmody said the situation for children in many discrete communities remained “bleak”, despite the presence of child safety support officers permanently based in some communities, including Mornington Island.
A child safety support officer has been stationed on Mornington Island for the past six years.
“Though only 10 per cent of the state's Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population live in these communities, the rate of substantiated child abuse and neglect are exceptionally high,” Mr Carmody wrote.
“Child abuse and neglect are occurring within a context of a much wider set of social problems and dysfunction afflicting these communities.
“Many are beset by extreme poverty, lack of employment opportunities, inadequate or overcrowded housing, chronic school absenteeism, poor health and education outcomes and extremely high suicide rates.”
Mr Carmody said solutions could not involve child safety alone, but required improvement to community living conditions, poverty and housing.
