Anonymum

A number of us including R0bert and Cevilia have just finished a long and protracted debate on Violence against Women. We have actually reached a level of communication I would not have thought possible, but it took a long time and much acrimony.

Before casting judgment on anyone, please consider reading through the discussion - particularly the last few pages. I am aware of the truth of your experiences, but there are many hurt people and the best way to care for our loved ones is in a united effort. Part of the problem with custody cases is the traditional view of gender roles held by many men and women within Family Services . This has to change.

Here is the Link:

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2153

You might also want to check the Users List to gain an idea of the agendas of various posters here. Like Celivia, I find DV discussions especially fraught as I have had first hand experience and know how vindictive a controlling partner can be.

Regards

Fractelle, you are unintentionally being patronising..."...there is a lot of hurt people out there". So lets all talk nicely because it's all the same. Pedophiles are mothers too? Perhaps you would like to quote some court judgements where the mother has beaten her husband, has criminal records for sexual assualt, and is molesting her children and lo and behold she gets full residency because the father is an alienator?

Good grief.

Justice, i am glad to hear your views on this. Child abuse in the family courts is outrageous, but what is even more atrocious is that people are actually supporting such a notion. Its because of two things:
1. Complete ignorance - People who are willing to believe anything that "sounds" good.
2. People who have a need to camouflage their atrocities in the name of "fatherhood" which drags every other dad in the mud and causes great harm to women and children.
I am glad to hear of fathers speaking out against it as well as the adult children that suffered.

From someone who has never been through this (thank goodness) I am hearing two things:

- The system allows child abusers access to their children without any legal redress; and
- The system denies access to loving fathers who have a right to shared parenting and to be part of their chilren's lives.

What a complicated issue and made more so by false accusations which make the legitimate cases harder to pursue.

What is the answer? Unless we go down the path of polygraphs, it really is a case of one person's word against another and what a horrible situation for children who are being abused.

What puzzles me is how men and woman can have children and then 10 or 15 years later report the other partner as a molester or abuser. How can so many women (and men) make such bad choices or do their partners suddenly become monsters? If they were monsters from the outset why are they not reported to the authorities or left.

I realise this is an ugly topic and I am repulsed by child or spouse abuse of any sort but am genuinely puzzled at whether these 'monsters' are always monsters and people choose to ignore them or whether bitterness leads to many false accusations. All child molesters should be dealt with severely but so should those making false accusations. I suspect that the latter often get away with it.

Theres a guy that lives in my street, that suggested that I should create a "dummy ex wife" so I could get paid like he does just for saying, "I haven't seen my kids for years".