Nothing ever changes, everything stays the Same

Law fails children exposed to harm

ADELE HORIN June 24, 2010

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.

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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.''

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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.''

Australian Police fail women again

Story Here

In another amazing blunder, Australian police failed to follow up a complaint made by a woman who was frightened for her own life. Days later, without attendance by the police, the woman was killed by her husband.
Again we see that the Australian Police are inclined to take a dismissive approach to domestic violence. This leaves women and children unprotected, and sometimes costs lives.

How the Family Court puts children at risk

Follow the link to OnlineOpinion for the article and discussion

How and Why Australian Legal Systems continue to Abuse Women

Reading through Australian websites devoted to dealing with the issue of domestic violence, talking about the issue with various professionals (people we expect would be practised in dealing with violence against women) one is left with the inescapable impression that, one way or another, women are going to be neither supported nor protected, as they seek to leave abusive relationships. This initially becomes apparent in the distancing 'objectivity' professionals use to maintain a proper perspective and response to women's claims of violence. It appears in the tendency to re-label the violence as something else, something less than or different to violence. For example, violent outbursts might be labeled 'anger management issues'. I recently had a lawyer jovially tell me; “We all do a bit of that, don't we?” or words to that effect. Clearly, he wanted to put the abuser onto the page of life the rest of us are on. But his question evades the point. We don't all 'do a bit of that', and we expect our social, legal and policing systems to protect us from 'that'. Don't we?

The current family law system in Australia presents a tangle of problems for abused women. Based on the premise that people do better in life if they know both parents, and on the now recognised as questionable theory of 'Parental Alienation Syndrome' ( series of articles at http://www.kidsindistress.org.au/parental-alienation.php), the law in Australia requires that abused parents appear (as already mentioned on this Blog) 'friendly' toward their children's relationships with their, and their children's abusers. This happens because family law in Australia is linked to a set of institutions and practises designed to make it possible for separating parents to resolve their differences without the need for litigation. The law may say that where there is abuse, these may not be appropriate. However in many cases, abused parents are ordered by the Family Court to participate anyway. This seems particularly cruel, given the trauma that victims of domestic violence often experience. It places victims of domestic violence in the unenviable category of being the only victims of violent crime in Australia, required to make themselves seem comfortable, even positive, about having to not only relate with violent ex-partners, but about being required to hand their children over to these people. It places abused women in a position that will lead to their continuing to be abused, and continuing to be traumatised.

How do these practises benefit Australian children? The current state of family law requires that our judges make decisions that are weighted toward 'the best interests of the child'. Sadly, although it sounds reasonable (and who can argue with something that is said to be in the best interests of a child?), the legislation doesn't stop at that. The 'best interests of the child' are defined as residing, as a primary consideration, in the child's having of a 'meaningful relationship' with both of its parents. The Family Court of Australia has tended toward decisions that give the impression that 'having a meaningful relationship' will require significant time living with each parent. Thus it orders that children spend time living with parents, even where abuse of children can be, or has been proved. Most recently the Australian media reported upon a case in which two children have been ordered, by the Family Court of Tasmania, to spend weekends with an abusive parent (article) And again in NSW; (article)

At present, a burgeoning men's/father's movement makes great noise about 'lies' being told by women in the family court. Their women, they say, are vindictively refusing them contact with their children. The Australian Institute of Family Studies has reported that claims of abuse don't tend to affect children's contact with alleged abusers (article). Although this finding was made in 2007, the Family Court of Australia continues to ignore women's claims of abuse and/or place children with abusive fathers anyway. However, even if it were the case that some women fib about abuse, it does not serve the best interests of children, to be placed in the care of abusive parents just in case the other parent is not being truthful. A growing abuse survivors movement in the USA (where similar legal policies have been practiced in some states) is taking the consequences of the assumption that women's abuse claims should be viewed cautiously, to the public. These children's stories are awful, the anger they express is palpable and powerful.

The question is this. Will Australia draggle in the coat tails of the colonies, clinging to loud but tired claims that 'we were one of the first to give women the vote, so don't say we're patriarchal'? Or will we take the kinds of courageous steps that our abused women and children need us to take? Time, and the coming federal election, may answer some of these questions.

Three hour wait for bashed woman and son

• By Greg Stolz

• From: The Courier-Mail

• February 09, 2010 12:16AM

GOLD Coast police took up to 3 1/2 hours to respond to a violent domestic dispute in which a woman was brutally bashed in front of her nine-year-old son and ended up on life support.

The boy told police his mother resembled "a rag doll" after a sustained attack lasting up to 90 minutes.

It was so violent that her blood was found splattered on the ceiling.

Police received a 000 call to a Burleigh Waters unit but the officers were diverted to another disturbance.

By the time they arrived at the unit, they found the woman unconscious in a pool of blood.

Last night she remained in intensive care.

Witnesses reported hearing the attack start about 12.30am on Saturday but police did not arrive at the scene until 4am.

An internal investigation has been launched.

The police media office announced an Ethical Standards investigation would be held as the bashed woman's partner faced Southport Magistrates Court yesterday charged with grievous bodily harm.

This horrifying report reflects something a local Police Prosecutor told me in a recent phone conversation. Sometimes the Australian Police are hesitant to rush to a domestic violence incident, because when they arrive the parties involved pretend that nothing happened. The woman involved has decided that 'she's still in love' with her abuser. Or she still wants to be with him. Surely this is not the point. The point is that when the police receive a report of violence, it should be investigated, just in case. Just in case someone is hurt. Just in case someone has died. Just in case children are at risk.

Of course we may not have a police force properly resourced to take timely action, and an Ethical Standards investigation might demonstrate that this was the case in this instance. Regardless of explanations offered for inaction, where there has been violence, we must consider the purpose of law enforcement in any Liberal Democracy (Australia is a Liberal Democracy). The law should tend to protect the citizen against the action of the strong and powerful, where that action is unacceptable. Where the law fails to do this, we should be clear that it is failing.

Australian Law Reform Commision website

The ALRC online has been engaged in researching problems with the handling of domestic violence issues, and finding ways to improve outcomes for Australians dealing with domestic violence. The commission welcomes public comment and submission. To participate in this, click on the link in this post and go to the Family Violence pages. My submission appears below.

http://www.alrc.gov.au/

"The Australian legal response to domestic violence seems to contribute to the risk experienced by parents and children affected by violence. It is notable that leaving the violent situation, renders abused persons more vulnerable. When a protective (and abused) parent leaves the domestic violence situation, any involved children are left without the protection the abused parent was able to provide, and are required by law to continue relating with the abusive parent. This is entirely ludicrous, and arises because the current legal state of play rates childrens' relationships with abusive parents more highly than it does childrens' safety. Protective parents attempting to change this via the legal system, are pressured to 'negotiate' with abusers regarding 'parenting' issues (when in fact the issue is not parenting, but is violence.) These parents (mostly women) are also required to appear 'friendly' toward childrens relationships with abusers.

These things appear to me an appalling injustice against some of the most vulnerable people in the community, they require a genuine, categorically 'anti-violence' response (rather than a 'we don't support violence but our laws will continue to support rather than prevent it' response). Make no mistake, that is what our current family law situation, does."

Thoughts on the Side

Numbers for consideration: ….

Posting on 30 Nov. 2009, to Online Opinion Australia's free Internet Journal of Social and Political Opinion, Greg Anderson reports that one in three domestic violence victims, are male. That is to say, 30% of the total number of victims of domestic violence, are men. Now let's turn that into a figure with more punch. Assuming these figures were collected on specific dates and related to a specific period of time ... say we had 400,000 victims of domestic violence, 120,000 of these would be men.

One hundred and twenty thousand men experienced domestic violence at the date these figures were collected. That's a lot of men.

Back to the numbers. 400,000 victims of domestic violence, remove the 120,000 males from that group. There are 280,000 people left. 280,000 victims of domestic violence. That's more that twice the number of men.

280,000 women experienced domestic violence at the date these figures were collected. Somehow women seem to be more vulnerable to domestic violence.

But I wonder, is a gendered breakdown of domestic violence figures relevant or helpful? Does such a breakdown play into the hands of gender extremists? Does dividing the male and female victims of domestic violence divide the ranks of those who might be more successful at overcoming domestic violence, if they were united? I wonder.