LISTEN TO THE SCREAMING CHILDREN:

A call to action to stop the silencing of the victims of violence in the Family Law Court

"Bashes & abuses mum or the kids?  Not safe!  Children must be protected.

Increasingly, magistrates and judges in the Family Law jurisdiction ignore violence and abuse against the mother and children, and seem clueless and disbelieving about how the same patterns of abuse & violence often continue as a parenting style.
    ‘I do get angry when they won’t do what I tell them or they get under my skin, and they are frightened of me.  But they are my kids!’  Father in research survey.

 You vote – tell your state and federal MP we want safety first, that violence harms kids.

"SAFETY FIRST IN FAMILY LAW"

Surely judicial decisions affecting children must err on the side of caution and safety.  Judiciary know that state systems investigation of child protection matters are failing, but expect Protective mothers to prove what the state doesn’t even try to.  So child rape, violence and abuse become irrelevant and you can’t protect your child.

‘I was jailed for refusing to hand over my daughter to her father.  It is cruel and unusual to make a loving mother present her child to a rapist’ after the child reported sexual abuse.  She’s ‘too young’ to give evidence in a very flawed system that fails kids at every level.  Either we say child sexual abuse is a terrible crime and follow through – including the judges, or we continue to sit back and let the abusers win.   We ought to know by now that those junkies in the street often have a history of familial child sexual abuse, as do many violent criminals.   Who do we blame? Women like me?  The mother who didn’t protect their child?’   If it can’t be proven by a system that doesn’t try, the Father’s Rights Groups call that ‘False Allegation’ and you can be fined, jailed and lose your kids.

Does ‘mothering’ include responsibility to keep the child safe? 
Then tell your MP that’s what you want, and lobby to change the law.

‘Violence’ becomes ‘entrenched conflict’

The family law systems routinely hide, ignore and trivialise the nature, cause and effects of domestic and family violence and risk to children.  Protective mothers are seen as  hostile, unfriendly and engaging in ‘entrenched conflict’, enmeshment with their children, and will be called liars, and punished. It’s as if the courts hate women, especially mothers as much as the angry fathers’ groups do!

The courts repeatedly latch onto junk science like Parental Alienation Syndrome and certain narrow ideas  become  routinely popular – but never reflect up-to-date research.

Note that it’s only these mothers who behave badly – never the men.  It is enough that daddy ‘misses the children and loves them so’ even when he refuses to assist in their upkeep, has deserted them, when he decides he wants them the court will generally facilitate contact if not residency. 

Demand your MP lobbies for safety and truth for women and children in the courts.
 ‘Protective parents punished’

When a mother cannot agree to shared access because of child safety concerns, she risks being punished by the judge / magistrate by having the children removed from her care, with minimal rights to supervised access.  If she does agree to ‘consent orders’, she can never later introduce evidence of violence.  Evidence able to be submitted from the state systems is routinely poor, women’s own lawyers tell them ‘not to talk about the violence’.   The system also blames the women when their lawyers do not act in time, eg lodging documents, and lawyers do not take responsibility.

‘Many Judges and magistrates routinely yell at, threaten, silence and humiliate female litigants’.  They are very powerful, and very abusive.

          ‘How would you know if he had a sore penis?  You haven’t got a penis so you wouldn’t know?  Judge to mother of boy who was sexually abused by the father. 

          ‘Don’t you dare go to the media!  I won’t have that’. Judge.

Did you think we live in a country with the right to free speech?  The media will not report these cases for fear of ‘contempt’ charges.   Tell the media they owe the truth to the public, who have a right to know.  Get rid of gagging laws.  Demand your MPs act!

"FAMILY COURTS MISLED BY HIRED GUNS"
Family Report writers, Independent Children’s Representatives, Legal aid lawyers, and women’s own lawyers and barristers (of either gender) routinely hide evidence, conduct inadequate investigations and make conclusions that fit into the pro-contact, dominant men’s rights culture and agenda.   Section 121 of the Family Law Act was meant to protect families from the pre-1975 media scrutiny given to high-status divorces.  However it now hides a corrupt and evil system and the disgraceful behaviour of people who benefit financially from it. 

Women who cannot afford a lawyer are prevented from seeking advocacy about injustice by the operation of this law.  Even women whose children have been murdered because the Family Law failed them cannot speak without fear of punishment.

Repeal section 121 of the Family Law Act.  Tell your MP that it is morally wrong to gag citizens and that the public requires open, accountable  court.

World wide issue.   This is not just an Australian issue.  Tell our Government Not here, not now, not ever!
In Britain, USA, Canada, Australia and elsewhere, mothers have lost their rights to ‘mothering’ at the hands of ‘ignore violence, pro-father-at-any-cost Family Courts.  We demand that the courts stop punishing mothers for leaving violent men, and stop assuming ‘parenting’ is the same as ‘mothering’.   

Safe parents are good parents.  Unsafe parents do not put the children’s needs first.
Shared parenting cannot be safe if family violence is an issue.
Safety first in Family Law,  Safety first in State Law.