Domestic abuse and Australian women

What does an Australian woman do, when she finds herself in an abusive relationship? This issue seems fraught with confusion. Common sense tells us she leaves. Psychology tells us she should have left ages ago and if she's still there she has 'issues' herself. The media, reporting figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, tells us that a high percentage of women in Australia experience violence. Depending which media we consult, we think either that violence against women is deeply entrenched in Australian culture, or that lots of women lie about violence and women are just as violent as men. As a community, we're under the impression that 'things are changing'. When we turn to the weekend papers we read another headline referring to the murder of a child. The public will of the Australian community seems to want to believe that 'to violence we say no!' But it wants simultaneously to press abused women to practice the 'sharing' of children with abusers. Our confusion continues.

We know that elements in the Opposition will oppose the currently proposed changes to Family Law. We think that since 'thousands' of kids don't see their Dads and 'thousands' of dads suicide because they don't see their kids, the Opposition is probably justified in opposing any change to 'shared parenting' laws. We also know that kids have 'better outcomes' when they have close relationships with both their parents. No one has publicised the research in which this claim appears so we're unaware that the AIFS qualifies the statement in way the national newspapers don't. Where there is abuse, the benefit disappears. We're unsure about how being abused or even killed, goes with 'better outcomes'. It seems sensible to suggest that both parents should be taking responsibility for raising children. We think, somewhat uneasily, about the fact that this is not the way most caring happens in our families..

Confused? Join one of the dozens of women who, each year in Australia, decide to leave a violent partner so their children will be safe. Having committed to one of the hardest things a woman can commit to, and having taken action, they find the children are in fact going to be less safe, at least some of the time. That's because the Family Law system, a medico-legal system with considerable reach into people's daily lives, provides opportunity for abusive, violent parents to groom themselves so as to make themselves look safe for children. Then those parents can almost without exception get the Family Court to order that they have unsupervised contacts with their children. Regardless of what the children want and regardless of the protective parent's evidence. After all, she's the mother, and she might be lying.

Into this tangle, intrudes another complication. Many abused persons are traumatised. They need time and space to recover. But when an abuser takes 'parenting matters' to the law, the traumatised party will need to begin having contact of one kind or another with the abuser. She will be urged to enter 'mediation' and 'family dispute resolution' with the abuser. The law says that victims of abuse need not do this, but speak with a group of victims and you'll find many of them are still told they should do it. So the suffering of abused women is prolonged. This becomes problematic for the abused woman in that the psychology surrounding the Family Court inclines to presenting a traumatised woman as unstable, having 'mental health issues', or being an 'anxious mother'. It's a profoundly flawed, unjust system which keeps some of Australia's least powerful people, powerless, traumatised and impoverished. What does it achieve for kids? According to the latest research out of the Attorney General's Department, not a thing. It further complicates the landscape for people who have already been harmed and it leaves the public puzzled as to the rising body count that attaches to family law in Australia.

The cynic would point out that thus far, shared parenting laws have achieved death by being thrown off a high bridge, death by stabbing, death by bashing and death by gunshot wound. Then there are the 'death by monoxide poisoning' results, amongst others. Over thirty children have died. The unseen wounds are severe and long term. Children forced into shared parenting arrangements by well meaning, father oriented interpretations of the law, appear to be the least likely to benefit from the being shared. At this point we could take note of the way family law has inclined toward treating the person of the child, as if it were a possession of its parents, like a piece of old furniture. That's how children wind up attending two different schools. Or living in two different states or countries. Or spending the first couple of years of their lives unnamed. There are several factors that need to pertain, for 'shared parenting' to be of any value to children. If these factors are not present, sharing kids around as if parents own them, is harmful. Parents need to live within a half hour drive of one another. Both parents need to be financially stable (this moves many separating parents with children to the margins of those for whom shared parenting works). Parents need to be able to work together for the good of their children. Finally, families in which there has been or is abuse/violence, do not benefit.

To return to the initial question, what does an Australian woman do , when she finds herself in an abusive relationship? She might leave. This can lead to years of litigation through the courts along with demands that she undertake various psychologically approved activities to prove herself a suitable parent and regardless of her accounts of abuse. Adele Horin (Sydney Morning Herald Aug. 31 2011) reports that following the introduction of 'shared parenting' laws in 2006, the biggest increase in the rate of 'shared care' outcomes occurred in families that “went to court … In 34 per cent of cases decided by judges shared care of the children was the outcome, up from 4 per cent of cases before the reforms.” This is the group least likely to be able to cope with 'shared care' arrangements, Horin writes. It's also a group with a high reported rate of domestic abuse. An abused woman might be advised that if she can cope with staying with the abuser, that would be safer for the children. It appears that whatever she does, she cannot do the thing considered sensible by most thinking persons. She cannot get away. Her children cannot be rescued. The public are left wondering “why?” as the body count grows. And the Australian woman we began with, is likely to be dealing with abuse if she stays. But she's likely to be dealing with abuse if she leaves, too. At the very least she will spend years attempting to stabilise and assist her children while they deal with the abuse from which they could not be rescued.