JamesH In answer to your query I was referring to runner's assertions of the importance of hitting children to teach them not to be violent.

To protect children in the family law system there needs to be a capacity to fully investigate parents' criminal, police attendance and health records and children's health education and child protection records when allegations of violence or abuse are made.
The best predictor of future conduct is past conduct. Where a parent has a history of assault, serious mental illness (ie hospitalisation) alcohol or drug addictions there needs to be serious attention given to children's well-being in their care. At present such histories are ignored, dismissed, not available, seen as not relevant. They should be red flags triggering a requirement to make orders/agreeements which minimise risks to children. There also needs to be a review process to learn how the system failed when children die or are seriously injured as a result of family law system outcomes. The children who are killed in the family law system are at least as important as the dead from the Victorian bushfires and governments should be as eager to learn how to prevent children being killed in this context as they are to prevent bushfire deaths.

"Don't worry, Doc. I'm not after yours."

Getting past your denial is the first step down the road to recovery.

"Who would want to spend their lives on the run and face extradition and criminal prosecution if caught, IF they didn’t have good reason?"

And there it is. In one succinct sentence you have summed up all the evidence I have seen to support allegations of child endangerment by the father. If the gender roles were reversed, and the Dr's diagnosis holds any water, you'd be demanding castration. The mother has committed a heinous crime, that is not just tantamount to child abuse, it IS child abuse, and you are so incapable of assigning her any culpability that you have taken the imaginative leap of assuming there is some hidden dimension to this story where she is protecting the child. Believe me, I have heard your unfounded arguments before, and not just from women. You're whole argument is predicated on the assumption that women are incapable of being selfish, dishonest or irrational. You would paint the men is this thread as being bitter and dispossesed, but believe me, had a father kidnapped his son or daughter i'd be right next to you as you cried for castration (except i'd only by calling for justice...).

phanto,

'If that was her only genuine concern it would come through in her writing'

Possibly. You generally make a lot of sense. But really, don't you think the anti-feminists here are like a pack of wild dogs who can sniff out a real or imagined bias against men from 27.5 miles away? Maybe some people are desperate to find such a bias and so they do. Just putting it out there.

SJF does have a point in that why should every author have to do the 'even-handed gender thing'. It's normally the feminist pc brigade who always want this kind of tip-toeing around to make everything pedantically gender neutral.

Antiseptic,

'Far better to give the child to "qualified" people in orphanages than take the ckance that a parent may be imperfect.'

Excellent point. Now ya didn't think of that now did you to the 'oh we have a better way that will come out smelling of roses contingent.'

LeftBehindFather,
Yep, point taken. A man abducting kids is probably doing it to piss the ex off, or abuse or defile them. A woman doing it is obviously protecting them from an evil man. Pretty par for the course I think.

I'm off now, as I don't like to upset Fractelle as I'm terrified she'll stalk me and try to make me cry for going against her rules.

I'd just like to close by saying THINK OF THE CHILDREN. That's all I really have to say (actually yell, as I'm not female, and by definition a lover and nurturer who would never put myself in front of children) to silence all debate on the topic. Everything I say thereafter is pure and good, and anyone who disagrees with me is a selfish misogynist looking for a gender war.

Of course the author is under no obligation to be even handed in her approach but if your concern is for all children then why wouldn’t you want to be even handed. Is she concerned only for the children who are mistreated by men or also for the children mistreated by women? Is she talking about the plight of women who are trying to protect their children or about the plight of children who need authorities to step in to help them?

All her examples suggest she is concerned about the plight of women but then she says –
‘How much longer can the government ignore the voices of children living with abuse?’
It is not that clear. If she is only talking about the plight of women then she does not have to be even-handed but if her concern is for all children then you would expect that she would want to be even-handed.

The subject is an emotionally charged one and nearly always involves a man and a woman at loggerheads. That is why it can polarize genders and then the gender war gets in the way of solving the problem. If you are going to write about this topic it would be much more productive to eliminate the possibility of inflaming the gender war by writing in such a way that was inclusive and by giving examples from across both genders. If you are not interested in being careful to that extent then you leave yourself open to being accused of some other agenda and such accusations may well be true in this article.

That's a pretty convincing and much though about argument phanto. Not sure it will sway SJF though;-)