Law fails children exposed to harm
THE Family Law Act is failing to protect children from ongoing trauma at the hands of abusive and violent fathers, a new study has found.
The act's aims of protecting children from violence and giving them ''meaningful involvement'' with both parents was being resolved in favour of contact even in cases of severe domestic violence, the study reveals.
Lesley Laing, senior lecturer in the faculty of education and social work at the University of Sydney, and author of the report, said more thought needed to be given to what formed a ''meaningful relationship'' when a parent had traumatised a child through exposure to domestic violence.
''At the present there is no requirement that a parent who has harmed a child in this way must demonstrate they can offer a safe and meaningful relationship,'' she said.
The report is based on interviews with 22 women, contacted through domestic violence services, who were negotiating parenting arrangements in the family law system. It is the first study that has allowed women experiencing domestic violence to speak about the impact of the 2006 legal changes that put greater emphasis on shared parenting while still maintaining protection in cases of violence.
While the sample is small, Dr Laing said the women were those whose children were supposed to be protected by the law.
The women describe a situation where they are discouraged by legal advisers and others from raising issues of violence in the Family Court for fear of being labelled as an ''unfriendly'' or ''alienating'' parent unwilling to support contact with the father.
''Anything that you do to try and advocate for your children is somehow twisted into being high conflict and parental alienation,'' one woman said. ''So you are basically silenced. And the children are silenced.''
Another said she had agreed to the children having sleepovers at their father's place because she felt she had no choice. Her lawyer had convinced her that if she objected the judge would give him even more contact.
Dr Laing said some women felt guilty they had escaped violent men but their children had not. ''Forty years ago some women could only escape domestic violence by leaving the children behind, and they were pilloried,'' she said. ''Now there is a new form of child abandonment, at least part-time. It's a terrible thing we are asking women to do.''
The report shows the women are battling a complex and unco-ordinated system that often saw state child protection services shunting matters to the Family Court but the court having no powers of investigation.
As well, the women battled community attitudes that regarded them as liars who misused the system. Professionals stressed the importance of fathering, without regard to its quality, while mothering was taken for granted. And it was commonly assumed that at least some contact was inevitable, no matter what violence had occurred, and that supervised contact would eventually move to unsupervised contact.
The study, No Way to Live, will add pressure to the federal Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, to amend the Family Law Act. An earlier review he commissioned from the former Family Court judge, Richard Chisholm, recommended amendments to provide greater protection. A much larger study he also commissioned on violence and family law is due to be released soon.
Dr Laing said the emphasis on children's contact with abusive fathers, even if supervised, showed an ''unsophisticated'' understanding of ongoing trauma. ''Spending time with the person who is the cause of the trauma will not fix things,'' she said. ''The men need to acknowledge and take responsibility for the harm and get help.''
