Solutions
We cant change human nature, but we can change the legal system we turn to when we are looking for protection and justice for our children.
Each and every one of us who is aware of the problem must work to becoming part of the solution. We must never stop trying to find ways to improve the lives of all young boys and girls who live with abuse and violence, so that they do not grow up to perpetuate the vicious cycle.
The articles below have a common theme: CHANGE to a Family Law System, (worldwide) that is NOT giving adequate protection to children and spouses of abusive partners after seperation.
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.
Public officials call for major changes in family law
About 58,000 children per year in the U.S. are ordered into unsupervised contact with physically or sexually abusive parents following divorce, according to experts at the Leadership Council on Child Abuse & Interpersonal Violence.
Many people concerned about the systemic problems with family court attended a daylong public forum Thursday at the Alameda County Conference Center.
Some compared the family court crisis to the Catholic Church sexual abuse scandals because of what they call an institutional level of collusion of harm against children.
FAMILY LAW AND CHILD PROTECTION FINAL REPORT
SEPTEMBER 2002
Some of the recommendations are:
The Federal Government should establish a Child Protection Service.
The Child Protection Service should be a national service.
The objectives of the Child Protection Service should be:
1. To investigate child protection concerns and provide information arising from such investigation to courts exercising jurisdiction under the Family Law Act.
2. To ensure, in the course of its work, that children and families are not subjected to unnecessary investigation, assessment or stress.
Failings in the Family Court system.
This gentleman has made some relevant points regarding the failings of the Family Law Court. His statement has been shortened and links have not been included as the source identifies the parties. The main issue is relevant skills. Are legal skills useful for helping families to care for their children and develop through disputes, to be successful parents.
The National Abuse Free Contact Campaign
The changes in legislation in July 2006 however create further barriers to women and children achieving safety and in fact will penalise women who raise concerns about their and their children’s safety. The National Abuse Free Contact Campaign is concerned that the changes would mean that:
- The best interests of children are being overridden by parents’ ‘rights’.
- Children’s safety and the safety of their family members being jeopardised
UK Women's Aid
UK Women's Aid welcomes recommendations for training of judges after investigation into children killed in cases of domestic violence. Mon, 27th Mar 06
Lord Justice Walls' report makes three key recommendations to ensure the safety of child contact arrangements:
that the Family Justice Council should look into the process by which victims in domestic violence cases give "consent" to child contact orders;
to take a more rigorous approach to safety of the child where the mother is the victim of violence; and
that no judge should sit in family proceedings without undergoing multi-disciplinary training on domestic violence.
The Green Book
Family violence erupts in a home. A mother is battered. Her children witness the abuse. One child is struck and bruised. A neighbor calls the police, who arrest the batterer. The family enters the court system. What happens next? Too often, the answer is a disjointed and ineffective set of interventions from several different courts and social service agencies that treat adult domestic violence and child maltreatment as separate, unrelated phenomena. In worst case scenarios, the children are taken from the battered mother who is blamed for allowing the children to be exposed to violence.
It doesn't have to be this way ... a major new initiative, popularly known as the "Greenbook," is helping child welfare and domestic violence agencies and family courts work together more effectively to help families experiencing violence. Since the "Greenbook" was released in 1999, dozens of sites around the country have used it to improve their policies and practices.
FAMILY COURT JURIES
The Family Court, as it is presently constituted, is not a "Court" because the Right to Trial by Jury is being unlawfully denied. The Family Court is a "den of Inequity" that exacerbates wrong and injury..... "in the place of Justice wickedness is there". This very website is testimony to that.
It is the Democratic Right of every Australian to be able to access Trial by Jury for redress and remedy. If both parties to an action do not want to have a Jury Trial, then both must sign a Memorandum of Consent that fact, and a Judge can hear, try and determine the case.
Your child next?
We need to stop thinking of how we can protect our child, and start thinking about what we can do to protect every child. The only effective way we can truly protect our own child is by making sure, as a community, we do everything we can to keep all children safe.And what is that?
Men who kill and molest children don't suddenly wake up one day and decide to offend. Usually there's a history, a story, the beginning of such behaviour: most often rooted in family dysfunction, that puts them in the line of sight of "the system" long before any serious damage to another occurs.
This is where we need to be directing resources: to stopping this problem at the source, with offenders themselves.