One of the many issues with the 'experts' who get the referrals from their favourite family lawyers, apart from the inherent back-scratching corruption when their common interest is cash for the 'job' and a sausage factory approach to children's circumstances, is that no human service professional undergraduate education routinely includes education about family violence and child abuse - not social work, nursing, medicine, psychology, law, education - practitioners may acquire clinical expertise, however without proper education they may recycle myths amongst each other - eg 'children lie about sex abuse because of parental coaching/child revenge/child pathology'(lawyer stories - these variations are routinely mobilised because the accused's lawyer's job is to challenge their veracity by providing an alternative possible account for the statements) in preference to the research evidence from clinicians working with child sex abuse survivors, that children's disclosures - particularly those with details and knowledge/conduct outside 'normal' child development, are ordinarily true by a 9:1 ratio. Denying child abuse is both common and possible because of the lack of education in this important aspect of human services provision.
Recall the recent reports in SA and Qld that penetrative sexual assaults on 5 year olds by other children were initially classified by each of the schools as 'normal curiousity' in preference to facing the truth that sexualised victims of CSA were acting out their experiences on smaller children, that it was serious offending and that both offending and victim children and families needed urgent support and intervention.
Offending against children thrives while society and family law are content to look away, make excuses, pretend it's not happening, blame those who tell, err on the side of private risk to the child, give offenders the benefit of the doubt - and collect their fees. There is a long way to go before children's human rights to safety are taken seriously in this country. If their safety was truly at the heart of decision-making, they would not be routinely given to offenders.

It is also to be noted that,in the case Koch and other journalists refer to, Melbourne psychologist, VINCENT PAPALEO, presented a Report to the FC, entitled "Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Summary", in support of the father.It was accepted in full and without question, by ALL FC staff, icnluidng judges and alleged ICLs and was also used and accepted by the FC's own "expert" who was later disciplined ;refer Koch's article.This is a clear demonstration of the true calibre of the "highly qualified experts" the CJ alleges she uses in her court-rooms and which Lunn refers to in his article. See above.
This case,I have not one glimmer of doubt, is just one of thousands, in which the FCoA,its staff and its mis-nomered "highly-qualified experts" have facilitated,permitted and colluded with the abuse of our Children.
I wonder how long before we also have a National Apology to the
"Abused Children of the Family Court of Australia"?
It may not be in our time, but it will be.

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Just checking it works...

I'd be quite interested to read the last handful of comments, but they just seem so daunting.

More and more it seems that child abuse cases should not be dealt with in the Family Court at all. The whole system and the people in it are not capable of confronting the abuse.

From "Background Briefing, The Mind of a Paedophile, Sunday 2 May 2004, presented by Helen Thomas"

Quotes from transcript (can be found on the Web)

Helen Thomas: Bill Glasser, ...visiting fellow at Melbourne Uni. Psychology and Criminology Depts. maintains the community simply doesn't want to investigate any of this.

Bill Glasser: I think there is a massive denial of the problem...Freud himself fully appreciated the nature and extent of child sexual abuse over 100 yrs ago, and in fact wrote about it.

The reaction to his observations which were very astute and applicable
today, was one of major outrage in professional circles - so much so that he in fact retracted these observations...He literally said...I'd better say that they're not real and in fact the victims of the child sexual abuse who I've encountered, have in fact just been fantasising about these events all along".

The cases of abuse need to be dealt by adults who are capable of accepting the reality of abuse - not well paid Judges, politicians, court experts and all.

Lama
What a brilliant idea to bring the UNITED NATIONS (UN) into this. I contacted UNICEF (the Children's part of UN) and was told to make a formal complaint to The Australian Human Rights Commission.

There are 8-page downloadable complaints forms (or hard copies can be obtained by post). The grounds for complaint are given on p.3 of the form. I think the relevant box for me to tick is the one relating to a federal government agency. (The Family Court).

The relevant UN document is entitled "The Convention on the Rights of the Child" (CRC) which was adopted by UN in 1989. It was ratified by Australia in 1990, BUT IT HAS NOT YET BEEN INCORPORATED INTO AUSTRALIAN LAW. The Australian Human Rights Commission monitors Australia's compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

This means that we need to also lobby our local members to ensure that the relevant laws are created as a matter of urgency.

The name of the Human Rights Commissioner as given on the website is Graeme Innes, AM.

I found most of this information on the website to which I was directed: Details follow:

www.humanrights.gov.au. Click on Human Rights, then look for the heading "Current Projects", then click on "Children's Rights" and keep reading. The core principles are those we hear frequently from solicitors etc including "the best interests of the child".

When this (the CRC) is enshrined in Australian law, our task will be easier.

"Usual Suspect":Please allow me to apologize for the fact that the intrinsic,detailed complexity of one of my consistently well-punctuated,high- intensity and high-information delivering posts was you felt, too daunting for you to even read, let alone respond to ; please, allow yourself for just one moment,to imagine how "daunting" it must be for all those little, betrayed Souls to be catapaulted into the hands and abodes of those whom they accuse of abusing them and further, be unequivocally told by CJ Bryant's allegedly "highly qualified experts" and FC judges who apparently are not in the least bit "quaiified", nor it seems, trained in contrast to other countries, to speak to these Childen, that they,along with the protective party, are lying and therefore, must be punished for same,by being ordered to live with the person they have accused of the abuse.

JFK: There are plenty of really eminent, highly experienced true experts,who are on the fore-front of Child Abuse and have been for decades, who were willing to give their excellent expert testimony in the FC, but now refuse to, for the very reasons Koch and Dr. David Wood and others refer to in their articles. Also kindly refer to Koch's artice "Doctors' Anger at Family Court".
Until the CJ makes drastic changes and first accepts that drastic change is needed, more and more of our Children will be abused and the FC,its staff, jurists and so-called "experts" will in my own personal opinion, have colluded with and been complicit in that abuse.
I communicate with those experts who really know their stuff on a regular basis; my comments are based on my experience.