 However, the report said that, among the 502 inquiry witnesses, 17% of female witnesses and 7.7% of male witnesses reported having suffered a sexual assault while in an institution, at work, or while living with a foster or adoptive family.Documentary evidence, such as newspaper articles and reports to parliamentary committees, suggest a range of rationales.Apparent motivations included the belief that the Aboriginal people would die out, given their catastrophic population decline after white contact, the belief that they were heathens and were better off in non-indigenous households, and the belief that full-blooded Aboriginal people resented miscegenation and the mixed-race children fathered and abandoned by white men.