Two-year-old girl tests positive for STD after she was raped by someone "close to the family"
A young girl was allegedly raped in Tennant Creek in Autralia's Northern Territory early this year and it has been reported that she has tested positive for a sexually transmitted disease that she got from the terrifying attack.
The girl had to be put into an induced coma after her shocking ordeal.
NT News reported that the 2-year-old toddler was raped by someone who is very close to the family in February of this year while her father was jailed for assaulting her mother.
The Northern Territory Children's Commissioner revealed in a report that the parents of the toddler were "well known" to a few of the Tennant Creek authorities and this included the Northern Territory Police and the Education Department.
According to Sky News Australia, the little girl was flown to the Women's and Children's Hospital in Adelaide so that she could be treated for the physical trauma sustained from the alleged rape. She has since been tested for STDs and has been treated with some post-exposure HIV medication. It was confirmed that she has gonorrhea.
The parents have reportedly had more than 150 interactions with the police and the neglect and harm that was faced by the victim's older siblings is said to be horrendous. All this took place even before the girl was born.
ABC News reported that the shocking findings from the investigation was heard by the Parliament on May 10 night and it revealed that the alleged rape the girl went through was not the "only violence (the toddler) had been exposed to, and experienced, in her short life".
The report also stated: "Some of these investigations resulted in prosecutions, with the perpetrator incarcerated."
In connection to this incident, one 24-year-old man was arrested in February and subsequently charged with sexual assault.
The elder siblings of the toddler "regularly" went through "substantial neglect and numerous harms" including sexual abuse that took place between 2002 and 2018. It has been reported that there have been 52 child protection notifications from the home in this period of time.
The parliament, so far, has heard that there were 16 reports that were made to the Territory Families, which is a state government-run organization, directly and that there were "critical intervention points" that were ignored. News Corp reported that this is what "failed her (the two-year-old) and her siblings".
She was taken away from her mother's care by the Department of Child Protection in South Australia last month.
The latest in this rape case is that a second man has been charged with the assault of the girl. The 25-year-old was arrested by the Northern Territory police and was charged with sexual intercourse without consent. He is being held by the police at the moment and will appear in court for a trial in July this year.
The first to be arrested and charged in the case was a 24-year-old man just days after the assault which took place on February 15 in the toddler's own home. The police did not call for any witnesses or even for any information on the possible alleged suspects at the time of the incident.
The investigation by detectives from the sex crimes unit of the police is still going on and the rest of the information will be revealed in court.
Tennant Creek was imposed with strict alcohol measures after the brutal rape. There was also the small matter of more government workers who were deployed to the area as well as an investigation that was started to see why the child protective services did not intervene sooner.
A report that was made by the NT children's commissioner had revealed that there were many failures that the department should take responsibility for. It was also revealed that the child was at "foreseeable risk of harm and that risk could have been managed or mitigated".
In the weeks that came after the brutal attack on the toddler, many family and community members blamed the NT government of not taking the concerns of widespread drug and alcohol abuse, child abuse, and high rates of suicide, seriously.
The child has been discharged from the Adelaide hospital, where she was receiving treatment, and both she and her brother have been removed from their mother's care.