Scared to seek help
A commenter on this post has made the point that many women who suffer domestic violence are terrified of seeking help for fear of having their children taken into care, and gave a link to a YouTube video on the subject by (I believe) Dr. Lynne Wrennall (incorrectly spelt 'Rennall' in the video) of Liverpool John Moores University. The video appears to have been uploaded to YouTube by or on behalf of Mothers for Justice, a group who campaign "for everyone who has suffered an injustice with the corrupt judiciary system". I haven't done any child care work for many years, so I can't really comment on this from my own experience (do the 'vast majority' of women suffering domestic violence have their children taken into care, as the commenter suggests?), but obviously it is a serious matter if victims of domestic violence are deterred from seeking the help that they desperately need.
Here's the video:
March 11, 2008 5:48 PM
Women suffering domestic violence having their children taken into care is a new one on me, although I have come across Mothers For Justice before.
If memory serves me well their website has been up and running for maybe 5 years and initially appeared to focus mainly on the inefficiencies of the child support system, although there was always an element of grievance against courts and CAFCASS.
Call me a cynic but I like to know an organisation's structure, where it's based who runs it and how they account for any monies.
March 11, 2008 8:54 PM
I've certainly come across mothers whose partners have threatened that the children will go into care often enough, but this will not actually happen just because there is domestic violence. However, circumstances that result in care orders do often have an element of domestic violence.
Yes, I'm not sure about Mothers for Justice - any group that says something like this: "in the family courts [domestic violence] is still an acceptable form of punishment for women and children" has to treated with care.
March 18, 2008 2:45 AM
I don't know the organization you speak about personally. Abusers do threaten to take the children away from the spouse, and because they have the funds (normally) to fight them for custody they can and do get it way to often. What is strange is even if the man has been convicted of domestic abuse in the court system the court system says - WELL he/she didn't do that to the children!
To most people that makes no logical sense, but I guess in the sight of the law it does. He only hit her so its okay, because he didn't hit the children. They see no risk.
I would hope they wake up and smell the coffee, and offer supervised visitation until such time (and it could be years) some sort of treatment for him is take seriously. LOL I know I live in a dream world!
April 22, 2008 6:04 PM
h - You are quite correct that DV abusers many times do get away with it, if you are a 'mother' that is involved in the family law system that is.
Few and very far between are the times that domestic violence or allegations of DV by a mother against a father results in the mother being removed from her children.
However, domestic violence and allegations of DV by a father against a mother results very often in the father being removed from his children.
A clear gender bias in the system.
The Family Courts take DV very seriously and rightly so, problem is that it is only when it is committed or allegations are made that it is committed by fathers that they do so generally.
Children witnessing violence or other forms of DV by their mothers is not usually a situation that will have the children removed, in fact it is no barrier to the mother gaining Residence many times and keeping a fit and caring father away from the children.
Of course if it is the father who is the perpetrator or alleged perpetrator then No Contact/Indirect Contact or Supervised Contact for a long period if not for the forseeable future is the result generally.