So close, and so fragile, in fact, that Emily felt the blood drain from her body. Could this be true? Was her three-year-old son "Nathan" saying that his genitals were sore because his father had interfered with him? "What does your father do to you?" she asked. The boy dropped his pants and fondled his penis. Emily felt physically sick. What followed was a marathon of claims and court appearances. But when it was over, Nathan's father would not be charged. His son, however, would, as a teenager, become suicidal. For more than four years, despite claims of sex abuse, Nathan was handed to his father for access visits. This is the hidden story of child exploitation. While we rightly fret about child pornography, a mismatched court and welfare system inadvertently allows abusing parents to go on abusing. As leading domestic violence expert Professor Thea Brown, from the social work department at Monash University, says: "It is true, there are cases where an abused child is handed back to an abusing parent." Joe Tucci from the Australian Childhood Foundation agrees. "We have situations where the child is handed over to the perpetrator," he says. Karen Flanagan, the acting national director of Child Wise and former head of Victoria's Children's Protection Society, says despite recent improvements in the operation of the Family Court, "kids are still being sent to stay with alleged perpetrators". According to Frida Briggs, emeritus professor of child development at the University of South Australia, who sat in on the case, the girl, now aged nine, remains with the father. The mother lost custody after refusing to allow the father access. "Mothers have been jailed for refusing to hand over child abuse victims to their abusers for unsupervised contact," Professor Briggs says.
This is clearly problematic for victims of family violence (mostly women) and for custodial parents (mostly mothers) of children at risk of abuse. No guidelines or criteria are prescribed and it appears that there must be actual violence or abuse before an exemption would be granted. Further, a court would have the power to make a costs order against a party or parent who has falsely alleged violence or child abuse to avoid compulsory dispute resolution. This threat of costs and delay creates another barrier to disclosure, ignores the prevalence of family violence and sanitises the criminality of child abuse.
A Family Court judge was then asked by Prof Freda Briggs why so many fathers in recent years had been awarded custody of children they had been accused of sexually abusing. We were told the justification often presented to the Family Court was that the mother was hostile to her former partner. They are considered to be acting against the best interests of the child and lose custody.
"The Family Court has no capacity to ensure that supervision and protection of children occur," said Dr Wood, who is also director of pediatric health services at Brisbane's Mater Children's Hospital. "The court ignores all the knowledge we have about people who indulge in child pornography - that given an opportunity, there is a significant risk of children in their care being abused, and the court ignores the fact that pornography, by definition, is child abuse. "In my opinion, there is abundant evidence that the Family Court is not qualified to decide on issues of custody of children where there has been abuse."
Yes, very frequently, affecting both mothers and fathers, whoever is the custodial parent, is the one who is accused of manufacturing, in fact if a child is alleging abuse, the protective parent who tries to do something for the child is the one who is accused. You see, the caring parent is in a dilemma, because if that parent does nothing, and the child is saying, 'Hey, I've been abused', child protection services can come in and remove the child and put the child in foster care as a care and protection case. On the other hand, if the caring parent goes to the Family Court and tries to protect the child by seeking changes to the arrangements, perhaps banning visits, or more often asking for visits to be supervised, there is a strong risk that that child will be removed from the caring parents and handed to the abuser, on the basis that it is the parent who is the problem, therefore, the parents is imagining the abuse when it's not happening, therefore the parent is emotionally damaging the child. And so far from being the protector, this parents is deemed to be the bad person.
FAMILY violence or child abuse is alleged by one partner in more than half the parenting disputes coming before the courts, yet final custody orders are largely unaffected by such claims. The level of violence or abuse is often rated "severe", but it remains unusual for the Family Court or Federal Magistrates Court to deny contact between a child and the alleged perpetrator.
Women's Refuge fears an international kidnapping treaty could be putting the lives of some New Zealand children at risk. The Hague Convention is aimed at ensuring children wrongfully taken by one parent are returned to their country of residence so custody disputes can be settled out. Women's Refuge claims judges sticking to the letter of international law are putting women's and children's lives in danger.
A family court lawyer is calling for changes to the way international custody cases are resolved after two young children were forcibly taken from their mother. Alexis Hart is criticizing the Family Court for issuing a warrant to remove the children from their mother and fly them back to Australia without her. The children are now with the father's family and there are concerns he will have contact with them despite a protection order preventing that.
The report said earlier research had found that many professionals believed that child-abuse allegations made during family breakdown were not to be taken seriously because they were just another weapon manufactured for use in the marital dispute.
A SEVEN months pregnant mother has been jailed by the Family Court and faces the prospect of giving birth behind bars.The woman, 32, was at the centre of a nationwide alert after snatching her five-year-old daughter and going into hiding for 16 months after the father defied court orders over medical treatment for the girl. More mothers than fathers breach court orders. A Family Law Council study from 1998 found nearly 70 per cent of those who breach court orders are women. Because the mother claimed her ex-husband was sexually assaulting the girl, the Family Court ordered the girl should only visit a doctor agreed to by both parents.
CHILD custody determinations in scores of Family Court decisions could be challenged following a ruling debunking parental alienation syndrome, a controversial diagnosis of the effects on a child when one parent denigrates the other.
The Psychologists Board of Queensland last month disciplined prominent Brisbane clinical psychologist William Wrigley, saying he had acted unprofessionally in giving evidence about parental alienation syndrome to the court.
An investigation found that Dr Wrigley's evidence three years ago, which had led to a mother losing custody of her two children, constituted "professional conduct that demonstrates incompetence or a lack of adequate knowledge, skill, judgment or care".
The Australian understands that Dr Wrigley has identified the syndrome as a factor in other cases to the Family Court. So have psychologists and psychiatrists throughout Australia.
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