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The Forum > Article Comments > The children's voices > Comments

The children's voices : Comments

By Barbara Biggs, published 24/2/2009

How many more children need to die before the Federal Government acts to protect kids?

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'How much longer can the government ignore the voices of children living with abuse?'

As long as we deprive fathers of the right to see their kids.
As long as we allow porn and violence to fill households and say what goes on behind 4 walls is no body elses business.
As long as we promote and encourage promiscuity and unfaithfulness
As long as we loathe Christian culture and promote heathen cultures including earth worshipping.
As long as we have no fault divorce even though often someone or both are at fault.
As long as feminist use the horror of child abuse to push their sick agendas.
As long as we don't discipline children.
As long as we allow artist to exploit children in the name of 'art'.
As long as we pretend we don't have to give an account of our lives to anyone at anytime.
As long as we look to the Government to solve moral problems when many officials are immoral themselves.
Posted by runner, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 2:11:27 PM
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Thanks Barbara. As others have posted, the list of children of separated parents who have been killed by a parent is long and the majority of killers in this context are men. The filicide research has identified gendered patterns in the data. But beyond the social patterns of post-separation parental child abuse, lies the system which enables parents who are proven to use violence and abuse to have time with their children in the 'child's best interests'. There is no real-life monitoring of the child's day to day well-being, and if time with children results in serious injury or death to those children, the public is invited to regard this (a) as an unforseeable tragedy - (the Family Court line) (b) as an expected (normal) response to fathers' frustration -(the fathers' rights group line which translates to 'do as we want or the kids die') and (c) as a predictable tragedy, surrounded by evidential histories of risk, which have been ignored, trivialised, and denied - (research evidence and child protection line). The family law system needs to be subject to an independent death and serious injury review process which reports to the Parliament and where recommendations for change must be considered for statutory reforms. Premier Brumby wants to learn from the horrifying toll of Victoria's fires. The federal Attorney General needs to learn from the horrifying toll of the family law system on children.
Posted by mog, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 5:16:39 PM
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Thank-you Barbara Biggs for your courage in speaking out about the failures of the Family Court to protect our children ; history will mark it well.
A comparison between child deaths due to accidents within the general population, cannot, in my opinion,legitimately be compared with the court sanctioned abuse of our children.
"Court Licenced Abuse" by Dr.Caroline Taylor documents the process of abuse, and the conduct of those who collude with it,within our courtrooms, well.
Sunita
Posted by SUNITA, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 8:00:24 PM
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Mog said – ‘the list of children of separated parents who have been killed by a parent is long and the majority of killers in this context are men.’

This may well be true but of what relevance does it have to the issue at hand which is the protection of children from being killed or hurt? Should we infer from this that there is something fundamentally flawed about men in general that makes them less likely to be trusted than a woman. If this is true then the courts should always deny access to fathers since it is a fundamental flaw in men’s nature that cannot be changed or access should not be granted until there is proof that all men have overcome this fundamental flaw. Men are more prone to kill than women so all things being equal men should never have access since courts have to do what is best for children. If governments were truly serious about protecting children they would do everything in their power to protect children from men at all times and not just in cases of access and custody. They should try and persuade women who have children to cease all close relationships with men as soon as the child is born so as to increase the safety of the child.

Either all men are flawed and courts should act on this premise or only some men are flawed and courts should judge each case on its merits to see if a particular man or woman is prone to violence. This is exactly what they try and do and sometimes they get it wrong – they are human beings after all.

Bringing totally irrelevant statistics into the debate signifies another agenda which is to disparage all men in general for some personal satisfaction.
Posted by phanto, Tuesday, 24 February 2009 9:18:25 PM
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Phanto

..."courts should judge each case on its merits to see if a particular man or woman is prone to violence. This is exactly what they try and do and sometimes they get it wrong – they are human beings after all."

No. This is exactly what courts do NOT do. They render decisions based on politics, quotas, disinterest and whether its late in the afternoon and they've had a hard day.

Getting it wrong so that someone is fined unfairly is one thing. Getting it so tragically wrong that people die as a result is not something we should just accept on the basis of a judge being a fallible being.

There should be no margin for error when human -especially small human - lives are in the balance. One of the reasons given by those who oppose the death penalty is because it has been proven that innocent people have been put to death in error. In fact the incidences of this happening were far more rare than the incidences where children die as a result of judicial error.

The system is at fault. Changes are needed as a matter of urgency. Just as people say "If only only one innocent person is put to death that is the only argument needed against the death penalty." So the death of even one child is all that's needed to signal the need for immediate and urgent reform of the family court system.
Posted by Romany, Wednesday, 25 February 2009 1:51:34 AM
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Nothing to see here, just a bit more man-bashing from the usual scapegoatists. The thesis is "all mothers are perfect, so it must be men, let's see if we can find some cases".

Although it won't do a blind bit of good in changing her blind prejudice, I would like to remind Barbara that about half of child homicides are committed by the mother and another large percentage by a boyfriend of the mother, whilst in the mother's care.

A small portion are committed by fathers. As JamesH points out above, that is hardly surprising, because children in single-parent househlods are overwhelmingly more likely to be neglected and to lack proper facilities and those households are much more likely to be headed by a mother than a father.

On the one hand, these women claim the children as their "right" and on the other, whingers like Barbabra try to claim that this is somehow not their choice. It is this sick culture of entitlement without any sense of personal responsibility for outcomes that is failing those children, not anything inherent in the capacity of men or women.

By removing the need for people to take responsibility for their own circumstances, as the Family Law and the social security system does for women, we train those people to look for someone else to solve their problems and in some cases, even to identify that problems exist. It is hardly surprising to find that some of those people so-trained are then incapable of coping in crises, which is when children get hurt.

Instead of trying to blame the loving fathers who have been removed from their children's lives, perhaps it is time people like Barbara started demanding a bit less featherbedding and encouragement for people wanting to use State resources, whether to pursue their husband through the Family Court or to support their choice not to work. Perhaps then, a little more sense of personal onus of responsibility might start to get through.
Posted by Antiseptic, Wednesday, 25 February 2009 5:37:10 AM
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