First a strip-search goes too far, then a boy is isolated in a cell … the former detainees who tell all-too-similar stories

Sexual abuse disclosed by former youth detainees often follows a “typical pattern”, Dr Sivasankaran Balaratnasingam says.

First they mention invasive strip-searches which go one step too far, then two. They speak of being isolated in their cells, or assaulted while being escorted to use the toilet.

“There is also an atmosphere where institutional abuses are unchecked,” the psychiatrist says. “The detainees can be abused by other detainees, older boys … It can be very traumatic in these sorts of communal environments with older detainees who themselves have been sexually abused.

“There’s a smaller number of teachers and ancillary support staff, rehabilitation providers who come in, and there’s some abuse there as well. But the majority in my experience, [are] guards and custodial officers, and it often happens at night-time.”

In the past five years, Balaratnasingam has spoken to up to 200 survivors of institutional child sexual assault who were abused within the youth detention system.

The former chair of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mental health committee for the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists tells Guardian Australia that the number of reports is growing as more survivors begin to break decades of silence.

But while the royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse led many survivors to speak up, those abused in youth detention are still burdened with the knowledge that they are less likely to be believed.

Guardian Australia has spent five months speaking to former detainees and their lawyers and advocates, who are lifting the veil on the alleged rapes, sexual assaults and bashings of young people spanning decades. They claim youth detention centres that were supposed to rehabilitate children have left them traumatised, struggling with addiction to drugs and alcohol, and trapped in a revolving door of juvenile and adult incarceration.

Former detainees describe a system in which children – disproportionately of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds – were left vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse, isolated and ignored, or disbelieved when they tried to speak up. Years later, they are fighting a sluggish and adversarial legal system which they say causes further trauma and has led some to abandon their push for justice.

A national phenomenon

It is a national phenomenon, appearing in courtrooms and legal offices across the country. Men and women, some barely out of their teens and others shaking off decades of silence and shame, are coming forward with claims of systemic sexual abuse inside state custody.

In Tasmania in 2023, an inquiry into the state’s only youth detention centre found evidence of widespread sexual abuse and rapes of incarcerated boys. A 2008 inquiry in South Australia heard from 792 people who said they had been sexually abused in state care – a figure the commissioner, Ted Mullighan, said was the “tip of the iceberg”. The royal commission into the protection and detention of children in the Northern Territory heard evidence of “sexualised attention” to female detainees by male guards, and excessive use of strip-searches.

In South Australia last month, a 73-year-old man with access to Magill youth training centre was charged with sexually abusing, raping and intimidating dozens of detainees, the majority of whom were Aboriginal children.

Former detainees speak of being left emotionally scarred, physically brutalised and systematically broken, all while held under the explicit care, and at the behest, of the state. Class actions filed in Western Australia and Victoria have alleged sexual abuse and rapes as well as physical assaults, lockdowns and a lack of psychological and educational support.

A solicitor at Angela Sdrinis Legal, David Longano, is working with dozens of clients who launched a class action in early 2025, alleging that they were physically and sexually abused or raped while incarcerated at Melbourne’s Parkville youth justice centre. The allegations date back 50 years, with the latest from 2023.

“The allegations span across officer- or staff member-to-inmate and or inmate-to-inmate [assaults],” Longano says. “We’re also currently looking at intentional torts arising from forced isolation and unlawful strip-searches.”

Two lead plaintiffs identify the same alleged perpetrator, who they say repeatedly sexually assaulted them and threatened or coerced them to conceal physical and sexual assaults. The individual, who has since died, is the subject of complaints dating from 1998 to 2015, the law firm says. Dozens of other staff have been identified by various plaintiffs as having allegedly sexually or physically abused detainees, the firm adds.

Court documents describe one plaintiff’s allegations of three separate sexual assaults while incarcerated for various periods between 2011 and 2013. According to a statement of claim filed this year with the Victorian supreme court, he was groped underneath his pants in a game room while he was playing on Xbox, and verbally threatened when he tried to resist. He also alleges that the staff member digitally penetrated him during a strip-search.

The same person assaulted him a third time while he was watching a film with four other detainees in a small cinema room, he claims. In the back of the darkened room, he alleges that the officer touched his genitals and forced him to masturbate him, then threatened to withhold access to family visits if the detainee reported the alleged abuse.

In the words of one lawyer who spoke to Guardian Australia: “It’s like Spotlight, they never seem to slow down.”

First Nations children ‘more vulnerable’

Balaratnasingam says many of the survivors he has spoken to are First Nations people, reflecting the over-incarceration of Indigenous Australians. The incarceration rate for Indigenous adults as of June 2026 is almost 12 times the rate for non-Indigenous adults, while Indigenous children aged 10 to 17 were 21 times more likely to be in youth detention than non-Indigenous children of the same age, according to 2025 figures.

He says First Nations children are “more vulnerable with less family support when they’re taken into care, and more susceptible to abuse because abusers think they can get away with it”.

The royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse found that Indigenous people were twice as likely to report that they had been abused while in the care of the state than non-Indigenous children.

Jackie Mead, the chief executive of Knowmore, a free national service supporting survivors of child sexual abuse and the Stolen Generations, says a large percentage of clients say they were sexually abused in youth detention.

“It’s alarming, the number of people in adult prisons who refer back to their abuse in youth justice settings, and we’re seeing that pattern of continuation into adult jails,” Mead says.

“We also have cases where people in adult prison settings are telling us that the abuser from their youth justice setting is now working in an adult prison as well, so they are re-facing the traumatisation of their abuser in a power position.”

The gruelling and adversarial court process, fighting against the well-resourced legal teams of state governments, is further traumatising, Mead says. Every phone call, text message, email and document request from their lawyers compounds the hurt.

“When we’re speaking to them and saying that this is the road that lies ahead, it deters them from coming forward,” she says.

Indigenous Australians can call 13YARN on 13 92 76 for information and crisis support; or Lifeline on 13 11 14, Mensline on 1300 789 978 or Beyond Blue on 1300 22 4636. Support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse is available at Full Stop Australia on 1800 385 578. Children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. Adult survivors can contact the Blue Knot Foundation on 1300 657 380. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Do you know more? Contact australia.indigenous@theguardian.com