The NT's 'horrendous' scourge of sexual violence has victims and frontline services sounding the alarm

Australia Broadcast Center

18 hours ago

Schyler Kennedy almost didn't live to tell her story of surviving sexual violence in her childhood and wants to help spare others her pain.
Warning: This story contains details of sexual violence and suicide.
Her earliest memories of child-on-child sexual abuse by children in her community start from about seven years old.
It became a heavy burden that marred her childhood, never knowing who she could and couldn't tell.
"I kind of always felt like it was my fault … I felt like I was such a horrible person," she said.
Schyler's experience is not uncommon in the Northern Territory, which Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) data shows has the highest number of sexual violence victims in Australia, despite having the smallest population.
A 2023 ABS survey showed19,200 women in the Northern Territory under 15 said they had experienced sexual violence.
Schyler is now 21 and said her early experiences of sexual abuse skewed her developing brain's perception of what was right and wrong.
"It clouds your view; you know what society deems wrong, but that's not what I've been shown.
"It paves the way for things to happen as you grow and it allows for that re-victimisation," she said.
Schyler now works as a youth project officer at the Darwin Centre Against Sexual Violence, the only community-based specialist service for victim-survivors in the Northern Territory.
She has learned to lean on her experience working with other victim-survivors.
"So many people can tell you that you're not alone, [that] you're not the only person who has experienced it; that doesn't change anything, it still feels like it," she said.
When Schyler turned 15, she met a 27-year-old man through a mutual friend.
In the year that followed, Schyler was groomed, love-bombed, manipulated and controlled.
"It wasn't a 'we fell in love with each other'. He made me fall in love with him," she said.
The man, who the ABC is not naming for legal reasons, was convicted of child sex offences for abusing Schyler and another young girl in Darwin and sentenced to 12 years in jail in 2024.
Court transcripts detail the horrific sexual violence Schyler was subjected to.
Despite multiple attempts to leave him, the power imbalance and his tactic of isolating her lured her back.
Schyler said she was "just surviving" the abuse, fighting suicidal ideation as her mental health deteriorated.
When ties finally severed after his arrest, Schyler said she crumbled as the trauma hit hard.
She began to self-harm and tried to end her life and spent time in medical care for her mental health.
Maurice Blackburn Lawyers have launched a civil claim on Ms Kennedy's behalf against the Northern Territory government.
The claim alleges the government failed to keep her safe despite multiple reports to government departments about her safety while she was with the man and prior when she was at other government-run institutions.
Her lawyer Heather Kerley will allege a vulnerable child was left to "reach out for help" herself in circumstances where she was experiencing coercive control and sexual violence by an adult man, while the government was aware of the other abuses Schyler had experienced.
Schyler credits the Sexual Assault Referral Centre (SARC) — a free government-run service that supports people of all ages and genders who have been victims of sexual violence in the NT — for saving her life.
She worked with a counsellor in weekly sessions for three years, rebuilding her life.
SARC's holistic model brings medical, nursing, forensic testing and counselling support together to help adults and children who have experienced sexual violence.
On any given day, it responds to referrals from NT police and government agencies.
It also handles self-referrals from victim-survivors, including cases of historical abuse.
In the past decade, referrals have increased threefold, with 911 presentations to the centre's Darwin office in 2024. About one-third involved children.
SARC's medical coordinator, Annie Whybourne, said the number of young people presenting to the centre with harmful sexualised behaviours had steeply increased.
"It's behaviours that are sexual in nature, but for a child there's no understanding that's actually sexual, so the behaviour can be very hurtful and confusing for the victim," said Dr Whybourne, who has previously worked as a paediatrician in the NT for 25 years.
Access to media, including pornography, is believed to be behind the surge.
Victim-survivors who come through SARC's doors respond to trauma differently, with some choosing not to talk at all.
Miniature toys and a sand therapy tray sit in counselling rooms to help children open up.
"Play is the language of children … sometimes when things are just too difficult to verbalise, or they don't have the language to verbalise what has occurred, toys can be part of that healing journey and be therapeutic," SARC senior counsellor Nicole Davis said.
She said the biggest obstacle facing victims was the culture of silence.
"There's a lot of secrecy and shame around sexual assault and sexual abuse … it shouldn't be a taboo topic because that's then where shame can hide," she said.
Schyler said sexual violence is "everyone's problem" and that her main goal is to keep "healing out loud".