Dr Sue Packer AM
“I have found it very hard to write a quote for the NLM website that does justice to the soul-destroying impact of intra familial abuse”.
Since starting her career as a paediatrician in 1972, Dr Sue Packer AM has worked tirelessly to advocate for the rights of children. Sue has been a leader in child abuse prevention and treatment and a champion of the importance of early childhood environments for the developing brain.
Sue was the Paediatrician assessing children for child sexual abuse in the ACT and region, from the time the service was established in 1990 (and a few years before), until her retirement in 2017.
“We do not have accurate statistics for child abuse in Australia. The quoted statistics for intra familial child sexual abuse are, from my extensive experience, very conservative. I would put the figure at much closer to 90% of children up to aged mid-teens. This realisation astounded me in my work. Almost all the children I saw were sexually abused by a family member or by a trusted family associate, regarded as family.
The children knew they did not like what they experienced, though for some it was their only access to “affection”. These experiences defined them. The children knew that speaking up would mean being taken from their family and this idea is too scary for most children.
We cannot plead ignorance. We must combat this intolerable childhood reality.”