PAUL TOOHEY'S report on the ruthless Aboriginal sex trade had you talking over the weekend. We bring it back today for those who missed it.

The Aboriginal woman, aged about 40, attractive with an easy smile, explains how it was for her when she lived on the streets of Darwin for six years, until she entered public housing last year: she traded sex with white men.

"It was every day," she says. She and other women would hang out by the beach, waiting for men to drive by.

"The man comes up and points out what woman he wants,” she says. “I’ve done it plenty times, to get alcohol, food and everything, and the drugs as well. I was hooked on it. I needed it. I was getting food and I felt good. Now I’ve stopped."

The woman says she considered herself a prostitute. The woman’s sister, aged 45, did too.

"I used to go looking for men, for grog and smokes,” she says. “For a box of moselle. It was every morning, every day. White men, Greek men – all for a box of moselle."

It has been part of life in the north since frontier times: Aboriginal women used as sexual commodities.

Now men cruise Darwin’s streets and parks targeting homeless Aboriginal women, known locally as long-grassers, whose lives are mired in poverty, social exclusion, stigma, hunger, trauma, violence, deteriorating health and addiction.

Men still pay the equivalent of handfuls of sugar, tea and flour.

Until now, no researchers have ventured into the long grass and asked Aboriginal women to tell their stories of this common but unspoken sex trade.

What has emerged from the work of Dr Catherine Holmes and Dr Eva McRae-Williams, working through the Batchelor Institute, is a visceral insight into the dangers and desperation of the lives of long-grass women.

The women appoint "Captains" among their groups to take turns having sex with cruising white men.

"All kinds of cars pick up the girls, V8s, hiluxes, flash ones," one woman told the researchers.

The women felt excluded from society and saw trading sex as an opportunity to earn cash, grog, cigarettes and ganja for their groups, and also looked forward to travelling in nice cars or, on rare occasions, being taken to private homes, with stocked fridges and showers.

It was a temporary escape, and a better deal, than the routine rape they suffered at the hands of their own men.

One woman said: "The blackfellas sneak up on you when you are passed out, alone, and do their thing and leave. Then another one comes and climbs on. And another."

The researchers interviewed 89 women. They carried knives to protect themselves when sleeping in long grass groups at night.

Some women regarded what the researchers label “transactional sex” (TS) -- or as the women call it, "selly--welly" - as a positive opportunity, because they got something in return.

The report, "Captains" and 'Selly-welly': Indigenous Women and the Role of Transactional Sex in Homelessness”, was commissioned by Families and Housing, Community Development and Indigenous Affairs as part of national research on homelessness.

“Study participants confirmed that women, usually under 40, would be sold by choice or coercion, although not a lot of pressure was necessary,” says the report.

"They say, 'Your turn to be Captain', or ‘I was Captain last time', or ‘OK, I will be Captain again’."

The report said some women coveted the role of Captain, because it gave them a sense of power and control when they returned to the group, distributing the grog, ganja or cigarettes.

"The flip side of this, however,” says the report, “is that a Captain who does not come back and share with the group will be stripped of their leadership rights and ultimately punished through violence or exclusion."

Some women we spoke to disagreed with the researchers – they said the captain was the man, not the woman. "He’s the person who gives you what you want," said one.

Some felt "shame" going with white men, but this was quickly “neutralized when they returned to the group and enjoyed some authority and the resources; usually $20 to $40 in combination with wine and cigarettes, but maybe up to $100.”

The report states: "When asked whether women did anything to prepare for TS, one mother explained about her daughter: "She good looking as she is. She has shower every day. She OK. Men like her”.

Respondents told the researchers TS was occurring “’all the time, everywhere’. One young woman explained that 'all people in the long grass do it! Everybody does it ... I do it sometimes, too.'"

The women the researchers spoke to did not see themselves as sex workers. Rather, it was viewed “in the context of gathering resources”.

The researchers state: “The fact that sex was being exchanged appeared to be unimportant."

NT Attorney—General John Elferink said while the activities of the women might meet the technical definition of sex work, prostitution was not illegal in the Territory and nothing would be gained by criminalizing the behaviour.

Mr Elferink said he found the report disturbing and agreed the women were vulnerable both in Darwin and their communities. But he claimed their lifestyle was a choice.

"Transactional sex is the thrust of this report," he said, "but I can tell about the violence, the homicide the sexual crimes, and a large slice of it is a direct product of people sitting around doing nothing."

Dr Holmes says the women suffer a high prevalence of post—traumatic stress syndrome, which she defines by exposure to threats or violence or death, or being witness to it. Most of the exposure came from their own men.

She says it made sense they carried knives: "They need to be hyper-vigilant to survive and they have very clear evidence that the long grass is a dangerous place."

The report does not pass judgment on the activity but Dr Holmes says: "It’s disturbing that people’s lives in their communities can be so bad that they see spending time in the long grass as a better option."

One woman related a typical exchange this way: "The car comes up and we [the group] go up to it and he picks which one he wants. Or we say, ‘Which one do you want?’, and he points... If the girl doesn’t want to go, she will say, ‘I already got a boyfriend’ and will walk away."

Men often targeted younger women, offering not just money, tobacco, ganja, but phone cards or bus fares.

"Private cars and a non-indigenous male companion also gave women temporary access to a mainstream world that their group did not generally inhabit," says the report.

Sourcing alcohol rules long-grass existence, and the study found if a group had grog and food, they were less likely to engage in sex transactions until the supplies ran dry.

The women expressed low concern for their safety in sex encounters with white men. One woman said: “They know not to hit a woman, not like black men who will give you the biggest hiding for nothing. They [women] will jump in any car. It’s not a problem”.

Rates of certain sexual infection are reported as higher in the NT than anywhere else in Australia, and especially among indigenous people.

"Sometimes use them [condoms],” a woman told the researchers, “but not all the time. The girl might be shame to push it on. They not worry about that. They get smokes, grog and sometimes ganja or maybe money. Not care.

"They just get in the car. Go with anyone. Aboriginal or Balanda (whites). It doesn’t matter... The man drives up and says, ‘you want to come for a drink?’ and the Captain gets in.”

The rate of homelessness in Darwin is higher than anywhere else in Australia. The researchers cite figures of 234 homeless per 10,000 people, compared 41 per 10,000 in Melbourne, and 47 per 10,000 in Adelaide.

Long grassers are seen by some in Darwin as a public eyesore, as human rubbish. Dr Holmes acknowledged many long-grass had anti-social behaviours which reasonable people shouldn’t have to tolerate, but said people should try to see it another way.

"I’d like (Darwin people) to look at it and understand what they’re seeing is a symptom of a deeper socio-economic issue affecting people in the Northern Territory,” she says.

"It’s not OK that these people are vulnerable. Regardless what you think about drunks, itinerants and sex, having women vulnerable to rape is unacceptable and there should be more shelter available to protect women while they sleep.

"Clearly the existing services are at capacity and the hospital and police watch house are not the most suitable options."

John Elferink said the idea they could not help themselves was wrong. "The assumption is that these people are too useless and the state’s got to step in and help," he said.

“I don’t subscribe to that at all. There is nothing that decays self--worth as some of the lifestyle choices these people make, backed up by a welfare system that does nothing to offset the negative and decaying effects on their spirits and well--being.

“If anyone in these circumstances wants to lift themselves out of these circumstances, the best form of welfare is a job.”

Mr Elferink said “rescuing” people with welfare-based models would only create more vulnerability among the women.

“The transactional sex component and exposure to rape component is a direct result of policies which do not place any expectation upon the person who is engaging in self-destructive conduct,” he says.

Yet if communities are viewed as places of violence and sexual abuse, is there is an argument that the Aboriginal women, at least, are entitled to some form of asylum?

“When we look at meeting the needs of this group of people we, as a society, fall short,” says Dr Holmes. “There are opportunities to make their life better, and therefore the whole of our society will become healthier.”

paul.toohey@news.com.au