Showing posts with label Censorship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Censorship. Show all posts

Stop The Responsible Fatherhood Bill

"All I ever wanted was supervised" a repeated phrase amongst family violence survivors.  The Family Court has come under recent scrutiny over unsafe contact and the controversial use of Parental Alienation Syndrome a diagnosis that has not been accepted by any scientific organization globally.  The bottom line is that children are ordered by the court to attend access visits where the parents are abusive.  If the mother objects, she risks losing the children altogether.  That is the state of not only the Family Court in Australia, it is an international problem.  
Until recently, there were few groups that were advocating for children and far too many groups advocating for such forced contact.  "Pro Contact" culture is really just being polite.  "Contact No Matter what" Cult, is more appropriate considering the facts that there is no limit as to who they wish children to have contact with.  

Cult definitions coined from 1920 onward[1] refer to a cohesive social group and their devotional beliefs or practices, which the surrounding population considers to be outside of mainstream cultures. The surrounding population may be as small as a neighborhood, or as large as the community of nations. They gratify curiosity about, take action against, or ignore a group, depending on its reputed similarity to cults previously reported by mass media. -Wikipedia


Bizarre punishments against mothers are initiated by the courts if they do not comply without consideration for the impact that the children suffer.  
Some of these punishments include:

"Isolating The Child From The Protective Parent"
"Orders inhibiting the Child From access to Counseling"
"Removal of The Mothers Passport'

In cases where the parent has a mental health condition that is one of the leading causes of homicide, the protective action is often minimal.  Some orders are for the parent to take their medication and see their doctor, but left entirely to the device of the patient and the potential victims are left restricted by the court order and helpless to what might come about.  The Court evaluators who make the decisions that the judges often solely rely on are often untrained for these cases, but overtrained in the area of "pro - contact' and too well understand the terms of "maternal gatekeeping" "Alienation" and "False Memory Syndrome".  They believe that the child is not unsafe in relationships with sex offenders if they "just accept it" without the interference from mothers.  

This is due to the fact that in the early 80s, Dr Richard Gardner coined the term, "Parent Alienation Syndrome" and travelled the world with the help of Association of Family and Conciliation Courts(AFCC).  Many conferences were held indoctrinating lawyers, psychologists and judges into the belief that children are better off with abusive parents.  This belief was also supported by the international Child Emancipation, a lobby group for pedophiles.  

Cases where there is not enough evidence to support Family Violence are often referred to as, "False Allegations" and in most cases the victim is required to pay costs to the alleged perpetrator. This goes against studies that support the notion that in 95% of child abuse cases are true.  Clearly it is the interference that the victims receive during the court processes that leads to the lack of evidence that is able to be provided.  

Like the German Lebensborn organization, they said, "Best Interests" but the intention was to reintroduce laws that tie women to men and diminish any concerns regarding child abuse and violence against women.  The current family law regime reduces the value of children and mothers compared to men and promotes the cycle of violence continuing through to another generation.  Like a genetic disease, our children have been infected with family violence.  

The German Lebensborn organization was similarly cruel in its time.  In the context of the German welfare system, it was considered that it was the "best interests" of the child to be German.  By abducting babies of other origins for German families, "Best Interests of the child" was created to serve the purposes of racial intolerance.  Today in the context of Family Law, "best interests of the child" refers to the amount of time spent with a parent no matter how abusive they may be. 

Although there have been more efforts to protect mothers and children affected by family violence with the Violence Against Women Act and the introduction of the Protective Parent Bill, PAS is still alive in the US court system and have progressed to a point where they are supporting it through the "Responsible Fatherhood Bill".  Like best Interests, it is aimed at enforcing contact with fathers regardless of the rise to epidemic proportions of murder suicides.  In sect 2, "Findings" it states that the reason to provide fathers with billions of dollars in funding is due to:
      6) Children who live without contact with their biological father are, in comparison to children who have such contact--

        (A) 5 times more likely to live in poverty;

        (B) more likely to bring weapons and drugs into the classroom;

        (C) twice as likely to commit crime;

        (D) twice as likely to drop out of school;

        (E) more likely to commit suicide;

        (F) more than twice as likely to abuse alcohol or drugs; and

        (G) more likely to become pregnant as teenagers.

      (7) Violent criminals are overwhelmingly males who grew up without fathers.
        
The findings stated here is derived from a confirmitory bias. If you look deeper into the research, it becomes obvious that:
Children were economically abused by the fathers and the state for withdrawal of financial support of children.  It is in fact written in the convention on The Rights Of The Child:
 
Article 26
1. States Parties shall recognize for every child the right to benefit from social security, including social insurance, and shall take the necessary measures to achieve the full realization of this right in accordance with their national law.
2. The benefits should, where appropriate, be granted, taking into account the resources and the circumstances of the child and persons having responsibility for the maintenance of the child, as well as any other consideration relevant to an application for benefits made by or on behalf of the child.
 
The "Violent males who grew up without fathers", were in fact infected prior to the separation by witnessing the actual violence.  According to Amy Coha:
  • Boys who witness domestic violence are more likely to batter their female partners as adults than boys raised in nonviolent homes. Of the children who witness domestic abuse, 60% of the boys eventually become batterers.
  • Sixty-three percent of boys age 11-20 who commit homicide, murder the man who was abusing their mother. In 50% of the time, if the wife (mother) is being physically abused, so are the children.
Teenage pregnancy is an old sexist phrase that draws the need to look at the pregnant women as the problem.  Contraceptives apart from the condom are directed at her as entirely responsible for the pregnancy.  According to Rape Abuse and Incest Network(RAIN):

Girls ages 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape, or sexual assault.


 


Victims of sexual assault are:7
3 times more likely to suffer from depression.
6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder.
13 times more likely to abuse alcohol.
26 times more likely to abuse drugs.
4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.

The fact that in some states, the perpetrator can apply to the Family Court to stop the abortion and continue these attacks on her suggests that women and girls are considered by the state as objects rather than human beings.  If such a bill were to pass, it would be a greater violation to the already eroded human rights of women and children.  

Hinch Speaks Out Against The Family Courts Negligence

Hinch Blog: Family Court Faults





 Over the years I have received – and continue to receive - more tortured, emotional, sad and frustrating mail about one subject than probably any other. Apart from the sexual abuse of children. Although sometimes the issues are entwined.

I am talking about the Family Court. A sometimes, unbending, seemingly unfair, biased, and (by necessity, they say) secretive, legal institution.

And it's that way, as the name says, because it is the 'Family' Court. A place where a judge tells parents whether or not their children can live with them. Whether a father can have access to his son or daughter and for how long. And how much of his future earnings must go to the support and upkeep of those children.

It is frustrating for many reasons. The secrecy laws make it hard for people to get their grievances aired publicly and I have been convicted by the Family Court in the past for trying to do just that.

Being a Family Court Judge would not be easy. You are ruling on adults' lives and children’s futures. And some parents become desperate, irrational and even violent when they don’t get their way.

The issue is in court for a number of reasons right now. Here in Melbourne yesterday there was a protest rally by the Safer Family Law Campaign. A group described as 'concerned Australian self-help groups, parents, legal experts, academics, domestic violence workers, health professionals, journalists, authors, counselors and members of the public from all over this country who are seeing consistent failures in the Family Law system to protect children'.

One of the speakers was, Dionne Fehring, whose two children, both under two years of age, were killed in a murder-suicide that she says followed a bad Family Court decision.

And in Britain a man was jailed for life for stabbing to death 24-year-old wife in front of her mother and her sons, after she had tried to save herself and her kids in several countries including Australia.

Cassandra Hasanovic had tried to seek refuge from her violent husband in Sydney after he was convicted of raping her. The courts here ordered her back to Britain to fight for custody. Police there gave her a panic alarm but refused to drive her to a safe house. She told them: "I live in fear for my safety. I am so scared of him."

Several hours later she was stabbed to death.

Dragged from the backseat of her car where she was huddled between her young sons while her mother tried to drive her to safety.

As the prosecutor said: "She obeyed a court order at the cost of her life."

My files are full of emails like this one received at the weekend from a mother: 'My son’s lawyer has told him he will be 'skinned alive' by her female Barrister as the court is gender biased in favour of the woman!   And we see these facts all too often in the news with tragic results. How many more fathers will take their lives and their childrens' lives before the law is changed! The legal system is appalling and I hope to live to see it changed or at least save one life. This woman is evil and hell bent on destroying what my son has worked 20  years for ... " And so on.

I don't have the answers. But I am compelled to air the questions.

Hinch hammers home the point

NOTEPlease do not talk about specific Family Court cases in this blog, or name names and judges involved. These types of comments will not be published. Please keep your comments general.

Blog commentsYour Say

  • Which is more important, lives or contact?
    The gender bias due to the Family Court model of the Eighteenth century Emile. Mother gets more time if she obeys the father and ignores safety and child abuse. If the mother does not obey, they make orders for no contact. However, if the father is not consistent to this older model, the court also is very hard on the fathers and retaliate towards ANYONE who dares to challenge the court on its decisions and principles.

    Anonymums Monday 4 May, 2009 - 6:18 PM

Journalists Against Family Court Censorship


Bid to ease blackout on custody cases

Caroline Overington | May 02, 2009

Article from: The Australian

PROMINENT journalists are starring in YouTube videos calling on the federal Government to change the law regarding the identification of children involved in Family Court proceedings.

The law states that children who are injured or killed cannot be named or identified with photographs if they were involved in a custody case before the Family Court.

It means cases in which either parent kills their children in a custody dispute, as has happened several times in the past 12 months, cannot be reported.

The law also prevents adults from speaking about their experience of the Family Court, including children once they are grown up, and it prevents parents whose children have been killed from talking about their experience.

Ross Coulthard, a Walkley Award-winning reporter from the Seven Network's Sunday Night program, and three other journalists agreed to make the YouTube videos as part of a wider campaign to open the Family Court to scrutiny.

There are concerns, especially among women's groups, that the court processes are veiled in secrecy. In some cases, the court gives permission for one party to speak, but not the other. This happened in the case of Ken Thompson, assistant NSW fire chief, whose former wife abducted their son and fled Australia. He has given his version of events, with the court's permission. She is forbidden from discussing the case.

In his video, Coulthard says there are "good reasons for making sure children are protected in proceedings before the Family Court". But, he adds, "there are issues that should be scrutinised by the media that aren't. Where children are hurt as a consequence of a bad Family Court decision, I think the public have a right to know."

The videos have been uploaded alongside videos of child protection workers talking about the rights of children in Family Court hearings.

Women involved in the campaign will rally in all capital cities tomorrow.

Graham Archer, producer of Today Tonight in Adelaide, says: "There are suppression orders which are there for good reason." But, he adds, "they act as a veil over the conduct and procedures of the court. All human institution fail, including our courts."

Megan Norris, a writer for women's magazines who has written about custody issues, says: "We understand there has to be strict confidentiality (but) there are exceptions (where) our lawyers should be able to argue that these are areas of great public concern."

STORY TOOLS

Openness of family courts is a ‘con trick’

Jack Straw has been accused of a confidence trick over plans to open the family courts to the media.

John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, has warned that although the Justice Secretary’s new rules will allow the media to attend family court proceedings for the first time, reports cannot be published without the judge’s permission.

The media, groups campaigning for justice for families and the English public had each been taken in, he said. “Whether it is by Jack Straw or by forces of reaction in the judiciary – we have all been hoodwinked.”

The reforms will take effect from April 27 under rules that have just been published. Mr Hemming, who, with The Times, has been in the forefront of the campaign to open the family courts, said that the reforms brought some benefits, in that parents or children could tell journalists or their MP about court proceedings, but he added: “It remains that publication can only happen with the permission of the judge.”

In an interview with The Times in December, Mr Straw appeared to imply that the media would be allowed to report on cases as long as they did not name the parties or publish their personal details. “It will be open to parties to apply to court for specific reporting restrictions. But my hope is that the courts are reluctant to grant these,” he said.

Last month a senior family judge said that the media would continue to be denied the ability to report on the detail of cases. Sir Andrew McFarlane, a High Court judge, said that only reports of the “gist of proceedings rather than the detail of an individual case” would be allowed. The present reporting regime would remain in place and would be “unamended to accommodate the insertion of the media into the courtroom”, he said.

Sir Andrew added that the Government was not intending to ease restrictions to “give the green light to the reporting of human interest stories”. Because of the need to protect the identity of children, he said, the media would “face tough sanctions” if they reported the detail of any case. “The reporting will be about the system, rather than substance.”

Sir Andrew, a family judge who made his comments to a conference

held by Resolution, the family lawyers’ association, said that the changes would help to prevent ill-informed and inaccurate reporting. But he concluded: “The brave new world postApril . . . seems to be far more sophisticated and restricted than may at first sight have been understood by some journalists, the public at large and, for that matter, the legal profession.”

Announcing the reforms in December, Mr Straw stated that courts would retain powers to restrict attendance and what could be reported.

Sir Andrew said that journalists would face difficulties when confronted with a parent complaining about a miscarriage of justice. “Under the new scheme, the journalist is in no better position than they are now to evaluate the validity of the complaints that they are hearing.” He also said that when care and criminal proceedings were being held in parallel, a journalist would be unable to “report any of the substance of the care proceedings other than possibly the outcome, once the proceedings have fully concluded”. In a case involving serious injury or death, such as the Baby P hearing, the journalist who was privy to the case would not be able to report any detail.

Mr Straw strongly denied any intention to mislead. He said that the intention was to legislateto rationalise reporting restrictions but it would take primary legislation. He said: “It is nonsense for anyone to suggest that there has been any dubiety in the Government’s position. Time and again I have said that we will bring the current highly restrictive rules against reporting in respect of the High Court and county courts into line with the rules for family proceedings courts.

“Alongside the formal changes to the court rules, I have also wanted to ensure a change in the culture and practice of all courts – the High Court, county courts, and magistrates’ courts – towards greater openness, and I am confident that the overall effect of these changes will be to achieve that.”

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