Australian teenage military recruits forced to rape each other as part of brutal initiation ritual
Older recruits physically and sexually assaulted more junior recruits to break in’ and humiliate new entrants in period spanning 1960s and 1980s.
Teenage recruits into the Australian military were forced to rape each other, often as part of brutal initiation practices, a public inquiry into child sex abuse heard Tuesday.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse has already examined churches, sports bodies and the entertainment industry with its focus now on the Australian Defence Force.
Older recruits physically and sexually abused more junior recruits
The spotlight is on two former training establishments used from the 1960s to 1980s – HMAS Leeuwin in Western Australia where junior naval recruits were trained, and an army apprentice school at Balcombe in Victoria state.
Counsel assisting the inquiry Angus Stewart said the commission had been contacted by 111 people about incidents of child sexual abuse within the ADF – and 50 of these involved either Leeuwin or Balcombe.
Survivors giving evidence to the inquiry would reveal they were sexually abused during their first six months at Leeuwin, when they were 15 or 16 years old, he said.
“The Royal Commission will hear that most of the abuse was perpetrated by older recruits as part of an informal hierarchy in which older recruits physically and sexually abused more junior recruits as part of ritualised practices of ‘bastardisation’ that were designed to ‘break in’ and humiliate new entrants to the navy,” he said.
