After Day 1 of the official inquiry into sexual abuse in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), horrific stories of forced sex and rape have emerged.
The inquiry is being held in Sydney this week, and is investigating the conduct of the ADF Cadets division from 2000 onwards and the treatment of apprentices of the ADF from the 1960s onwards.
So far, the commission has heard from 111 people who claim to have experienced physical and mental abuse during their time within the defence force. 30 people will be giving evidence before the commissioners: Justice Peter McClellan, Robert Fitzgerald and Professor Helen Milroy.
The Sydney Morning Herald has reported on accounts given to the commission. One man, who was given the pseudonym CJA, joined the navy in Western Australia in 1967 and opened up about his experiences being hazed during his time there.
“On multiple occasions I was snatched in the middle of the night and dragged to a sports oval,” he said.
“I was forced to suck another recruit’s penis or lick a junior recruit’s anus. This was often after another recruit had been buggered by an older recruit and ejaculated into.
“Other times I was forced to have anal intercourse with junior recruits or I was raped by another junior recruit who was directed to do so by the older recruits or base staff. This happened repeatedly.”
His seniors even told him: “Suck it up boy, I did it, and it will make a man of you.”
But this wasn’t the only account of such events, another man came forward under the pseudonym CJT and described being forced to give oral sex to another man.
“[One of them] then exposed his penis to me and said: ‘Don’t think you can get away that easily. Now you’ll suck this.’
“Then they rolled me over and applied shoe polish to my penis and scrotum and started scrubbing it with a brush.
“I was left lying on the tiles, bleeding, with black shoe polish all over my penis and scrotum.”
Perhaps the scariest part of everything was that there were complaints from survivors of this abuse that these events are being ignored. Before being removed from the hearing, 55-year-old sexual abuse survivor Robert McJanett said:
“We are just rubbish for you to flush down the toilet, this is the biggest cover-up in the country.”
16-year-old Eleanore Tibble is another person that was victim to sexual abuse. She was just 14 when she joined the Australian Defence Force in Hobart in 1999, and she took her own life in November 2000. She was engaged in a sexual relationship with a 30-year-old instructor, and was told that she could either resign or be dishonourably discharged. Her mother, Susan Campbell, will be giving evidence before the commission on the relationship.
The hearing will continue this week, and there is hope that it will cause change amongst the culture of the ADF.
Lieutenant General David Morrison, Chief of the Army has released this message two years ago on the unacceptable sex scandal within the ADF:
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