Family Violence is still on the menu on Australian Family Court

Despite recent changes implementing family violence laws in the Family Court, Family Violence is still thriving.  Whilst the past year I have barely spent online, I have talked to hundreds of mothers affected by this mostly with recent cases where the judgments favor the perpetrator above the child and all victims involved.  Victims still barely have a voice.

Despite all the well crafted speeches from the court in public space, private-sphere is a different story.  Alike all forms of abuse occurring in private, so does human rights violations against the most vulnerable and least likely to afford the fine things in life that the courts actors enjoy at their expense(and sometimes the cost of a life): children and women.

The court relies all too heavily upon the notion that it makes its decisions based upon the rights of the convention of the child.  This is used to protect child's privacy, "best interests" and right to know the other parent.  I make no error in my judgement when I write that these interests are only upheld when the courts interests are upheld first and if they are compatible, the child's rights are not violated.

When family violence(not limited to domestic violence) is historical to the family, these interests usually clash with the courts.  This is because most victims are robbed of resources that the perpetrator has at his disposal.  The gender divide is just touching the surface when examining the root of the issue. Its why these laws do not work.  We could lobby again and change the laws to ensure that every child's voice is heard, but the reality is that the court navigates around these laws creatively and completely at each judges whim.  The political culture of the courts is ingrained in neoconservative values, over-toned by patriarchy with the old fashioned, "children and women should be seen and not heard".  One only needs to read the views of the judgments to find their own perfect flavor of disgust.  For many years, activists have continuely recommended the court become more open and tested with community values, but the best recommendation I have heard is a royal commission.  The court needs to be investigated, not merely touched superficially by a 2d tabloid view, but a thorough investigation where every aspect is examined.  Where the money trail is followed all the way to the end and every name of every child homicide is checked against the court records with or without the courts approval.  It is something that is no longer a request, idea or merely a discussion point:  Its an expectation.  Without it, the court remains liable to the deaths of all victims affected.

10 Reasons The Family Court is Not Just About Conflict

1. Family Violence is often referred as "High Conflict", "Entrenched Conflict" to mask the severity of the situation.

Mentioned in the latest report on Family Violence in Family Courts, high conflict has often been a tool to diminish support for victims within the media and inside the courts andwritten judgments.

For Instance, a judge referred to death threats, property damage and stalking towards the mother as, "High Conflict":

In assessing the probative value I have considered my finding that the father had slashed the tyre of Mr U’s car in the company of another person. Around the same time and in the circumstances of high conflict (the father attending at the mother’s place of work and the father threatening the mother at an intersection including the clear threat of cutting her throat) indicates that there is a tendency or coincidence such that the slashing of the tyres, scratching of the car and putting nails into the tyres of the mother’s car are so similar as to believe that some, if not all, of those events are related to the father’s ongoing stalking and terrorising the mother. I make this finding ignoring my subsequent findings in relation to the words asserted by Mr J in January 2009.

2. Family Violence is the core business of the Family Court

Originally a popular statement amongst legal professionals as a tool to brush off concerns as just allegations, has become the new spotlight on an old phrase. It use to be used to view all concerns as just court tactics in obtaining custody of children. Now, it is often used to highlight how courts have been profiting from extending the horror for victims of family violence. Originally re interpreted by an anonymous group of women writers, it has become a major point for reform.

3. Gender equality has not been reached within the international community, thus all conflicts are not born equal.

Whilst the advancement of women in public and political life has improved over time, most laws are developed within a male dominated setting. In theShared Parenting responsibility statistics, the family court decided that 31% of mothers were mentally ill and only 3% of fathers were mentally ill and not fit to see the children. Whereas, in the general population on statistics around that time, 22% of females and 20% of males were mentally ill. What a lot of people fail to note is that the family court is a slice of the general population and thus should provide results consistent to general population data. This is because, there is bias in diagnosis by court selected psychologists and psychiatrists. Parent Alienation, is a fictitious syndrome that has been used in court rooms in the US for many years and traveled to Australia in the 1980's. This syndrome is often used to divert the spotlight from the alleged perpetrator to the protective parent and diminish their concerns to something spiraling from mental illness. Once established in a Family Court report, its often very difficult to debunk because of its popularity amongst the pseudo - psy- legal community.

4. There is no separation of church and state in Family Law matters.

Family types that clash with religious groups in Australia are often single mothers, same sex couples and new age religious based families. The Family Council identified these groups as "opposing" groups when conducting a think-tank on lobbying for shared parenting. Their values, naturally excluded consideration of young people, women, same sex couples and even basic human rights. The motivation behind the laws were to reverse the right for women to; work, to abort, to leave domestic violence, to shield the children from abuse. Whilst the site is a radical example and one would assume no person with a rational mind would support this organisation, many of these values were reflected within laws surrounding their targets. This organisation whilst small, is still funded and active.

5. You cannot negotiate with a psycho.

Could you ever imagine a scenario where mediation would work with Ted Bundy and his only surviving victim? Or perhaps mediation between Ivan Milat and Paul Onions? There is a good reason why there is no mediation between them: You cannot negotiate with a psycho. The very thought of that is some kind of sick joke, yet at resolution dispute centers, they do this everyday.

In fact, Relationships Australia boasts that their mediators are specially trained in negotiating with psychos.

The victim of course has only two choices:

1. Negotiate with a psycho
2. Relive the whole experience under scrutiny in the Family Court.

This is why so many family violence cases ended in consent orders. Consent orders were such a wonderful blanket when the victim was murdered, that spokespeople had the opportunity to explain away that no-one is responsible except for the victim who "consented".

6. Family Court cases are in secret

Anyone who wants to take their case to the media, even when the only surviving child has died, must get the courts permission. Controversially, the most common excuse for the secrecy is to protect the children's names. The secrecy law however, does not reflect that and the practices are more consistent to "the best interests of the court".

This prevents public accountability and understanding of some of the issues that affect victims that go through the family court.

7. False allegations of Child Abuse are rare.

Even children know that child abuse is a serious matter and telling the truth about these things is really important. Despite this, on a community attitudes survey, it was found that half of the community believed that women make up stories of rape, violence and child abuse to gain custody of children. In one of the largest family court samples, findings not only debunked the myth that false allegations dominated family court proceedings, but also the myth that mothers were the main culprits. As little as 12%, were false allegations and most of them were fathers.

8. Its a human rights issue too.

Try to contact Amnesty International and they will tell you that they do not deal with family court cases. Try to contact the Australian Human Rights Commission and they will tell you that its out of jurisdiction. That does not mean its not a human rights issue. Many aspects of family court cases apply to human rights. In rare cases, the Australian Human Rights Commission have intervened, but not as often as they should. This is because the human rights violations are ambiguous in the family law realm. There are too many violations to list them all here, but one can peruse the declaration here. Below is the UN's report on Australia in the context of womens human rights:

9. Sometimes its a matter of life or death

Some victims thought they could survive by avoiding his anger and complying with the orders. Unfortunately, its deeper than that. Homicides relating to family violence is usually because the perpetrator sees the children and their mother as chattel rather than human beings. Just like an angry mechanic might damage a car for not doing what he wants, the perpetrator will find ways to punish them or adopt the, "If I can't have them, no-one will" attitude".

In a way, Family Violence is a silent genocide especially in the context that courts entrap victims from being able to escape the perpetrator and seek proper safety. They are forced to endure the trauma and some even learn that it was safer for the children to return to the relationship, because at least she could be there for them.

Without Family Courts forcing victims to remain in the residence that the perpetrator is aware of and bring the children to him unsupervised, I have no doubt that statistics in general for the years to come would be dramatically reduced. I have no doubt that the death rate would also be reduced significantly. There are so many murders relating to the family court, some reported and others where families endure the loss alone, unacknowledged for the severe violation that the courts orders caused.

10. Its about the children

As much as laws regarding children have been manipulated to serve the agendas of the courts revenue, the agenda of MRAs and the agenda of churches, it is still clearly reflecting the needs of children with the urgency that these situations outside of these courts warrant. Clearly, a man who beats a child's mother does not earn the title "father" in any way, shape or form. Some self proclaimed "experts" believe that they have the ability to play Russian roulette with children's lives by anticipating with little empirical foundation that somehow the father would not be violent to the child too. I have far more respect for the expert that honestly states, "I don't know" when they reach an area that is out of their league, than the one who is desperately career driven that they will make statements to please at all costs. These costs right now are lives and time is ticking away.

The Mothers Movement and Misconceptions

From the mens movement and even the judicial perspective, the mothers movement are radical feminists. Quotes about hating men, lyrics on a menocide and destroying fatherhood is the menacing picture painted from some groups when referring to the mothers movement and other groups that oppose child abuse. Radical feminism is sometimes defined as,

“The feminist point is that sex is central to women’s oppression. It is through heterosexual desire that women are fitted, and fit themselves, into their subordinate roles in relation to men… It is women’s lot to serve men, to see no alternative to their subordinate roles in relation to men, to gain access to ‘human’ status only through men, and to embrace that as their own identity.” - Denise Thompson, Radical Feminism Today

Many mothers in our circumstances are heterosexual and as much as we respect the work of feminists in general, its not something that a lot of us can relate to. Some of us have new partners, or on the dating scene. We are confronted with both positive and negative experiences. There has not been a women I have met in this movement that has not been able to recall a time in their life where they had a positive, respectful relationship with a man.

Where the mothers movement and feminism meet is upon the understanding that there is a lot of violence against women more than against men and in all too many cases, her only escape is the local morgue. Sadly, the efforts to stop violence against women rarely mention mothers who make up a majority of the statistics. Even the image of violence against women is abstract. It often depicts a single women, but rarely a mother having to endure this with children. In turn, the rest of the community are ignorant as to what actually happens to mothers with children in domestic violence, and sadly they endure the most. If she is able to leave and makes it to a refuge, the family court may view that as "instable" for the children. If she is suffering from trauma, she may be deemed unfit to care for them. If she was permanently disabled, she will be deemed unfit to care for them. What a lot of people don't know or even expect is that the children in most cases will be allocated to the man who destabilized, traumatized and disabled their mother. Most credible research on family violence proves that children are mentally impaired from witnessing it and in most cases they are likely to be subjected to it themselves.

As family violence began behind closed doors, it ends behind closed doors of the Australian

Family Court. Most cases expose children to ongoing violence and trauma without respect or consideration of children or mothers lives. Addressing these issues is the heart of the mothers movement. Its not about representing just mothers, but acknowledging all victims of family violence as a unit that needs to be protected. Their relationship that needs to be respected. When a mother becomes persistent at requesting protection, the courts interpret these actions as a challenge to their power and in turn deal harsh decisions where the mother is restricted to supervised visits whilst the perpetrator retains full custody of the child. These are the problems that the mothers movement seeks to address and something we have done mostly alone without the support of feminist groups and organisations. Alot of us have at least one male family member, sometimes a son that we deeply care about that assists us in reality checking as to whether we truly have stepped on other peoples rights in our course of actions.

Another myth is that because we champion mothers causes, is that we will help abusive mothers. This is where the mens movement continually fails. The whole reason why we do what we do is because we are deeply opposed to violence and child abuse, learning a mother has abused her child is just as abhorrent as any case and there are no excuses. Many of us who have struggled so much to protect our children cannot relate to women that have abused them. We are women who love our children very much and want nothing more than for them to live a life free from family violence.

So if you expected the mothers movement to be something else, I know you will be disappointed.

What About Melinda Stratton's side of the Story?

The news articles are flying in supporting a potential sexual abuser and claiming that Melinda Stratton is mentally ill. Mental illness is the only pathetic explanation as to why a business women would run away from everything that is familiar to her and Andrew. If there was a criminal background, it would be featured, but no Melinda Stratton has nothing but the opinion of a court ordered psych.

Ken Thompson has certainly been around pushing his views to all that challenge until most people just give in and say, "Oh...Um...yes, shes crazy and your not an abuser".

Note the word most. The exclusion is the community of REAL mothers and children who have been through this and know what Melinda has gone through. Lets face it, experts get paid for their opinion at the end of the day and I am sure some are willing to alter some to get a nice big payout at the end of the day. I place my bets on experience.

In Australia, we now have grown up children who have been forced by court order to stay with an abusive parent. No law is going to stop them from speaking out in the end as Australian jurisdiction only reaches so far.

How to break the silence...

We now have wikileaks, where you can submit your evidence anonymously and there is nothing that the family court can do. They would have to prove you submitted it, to warrant any court cases. Julian Assange might have been through his own battles as a father, but it doesn't make him a misogynist. he was on the run himself as a child from a psychopathic dad which neutralizes his view to warranting the need for protecting children.

Lets face it, the press is restricted to speaking for the court, not the children and sooner or later - its all going to come out. If you are considering submitting your evidence of abuse or murder in relation to the Family Court, read the instructions on how to submit anonymously and watch this video:

Europe sides with Aussie Chauvenists

Australia, renowned for male chauvinist behavior, racism and all round backward thinking. The intelligence is clearly lacking when they called it "The lucky Country". With three major political parties leaning from moderate to far right - It is no wonder more and more women are fleeing this country. It is only the lucky country, because at the end of the day, there is always a scapegoat paying for it.

When of course there are complaints, the media does a remarkable job at cleaning up after its thugs. One would only have to view articles like these to learn that there is little truth in the tales from down under. Ask any partner of any non white member of the Australian community about the daily racist slurs she or he receives in the public and suddenly the veil lifts.

To consider that male white supremacy is righteous is in fashion for Australia and as it seems, every Aussie is following suit. Dig deeper at the victims of Australian white supremacy and there are many women, mostly mothers who care a lot for their children. They are Australian societies scapegoat. Those many who have tried or succeeded in escaping violence are the "untouchables" of Australian culture. The biggest reason for leaving is for their children. Most are not concerned what happens to them, just their children.

Of course, there are always bad examples of motherhood, but these are trophied as recognition that all mothers are this way; that in a bizarre logic - they are not human, but merely a brand of product on the patriarchal market. To the male dominated judicial system, the family court views mothers as a machine useful for providing children as though they are a commodity. Even the values of equality are distorted to feed the masses of male supremacist, by faking shared parenting. Sharing the parenting before divorce for most Australian men is too much, but if the woman leaves, sharing the parenting is invoked as a means to use the child and chain her to him for life.

This was after all instigated by the same group that invoked censuring the internet. The festival of the Light. Men like Warwick Marsh, Barry Williams and John Abbott, wanted to enforce marriage as a non-negotiable contract. They blamed women for the problems in marriage, but grossly ignored the violence from men. Warwick Marsh himself had a close family member commit a murder-suicide, the ultimate act of possession and obsession. Yet, his interpretation of the event was misappropriated to condemn and punish the women who leave.

John Abbott was an extreme example, but successfully pushed for shared parenting in alliance with the members of the shared parenting council. He believed that women who cheat should be punished by death. A rogue and violent attitude that one would consider reserved only for the underdeveloped world where stoning women is an everyday account.

In contrast, Europe gender divide is far less than Australia. Shared Parenting occurs before divorce and the European Assembly had raised UK's treatment of mothers in the Family Court as abhorrent. In the case of Melinda Stratton however, it appears that Europe has sold out on human rights as they arrested her for taking her child.

The media in Australia has written dozens of articles applauding the pursuit of a mother who stated that she went to such a great length to save her child from being abused. The media painted this business women as mentally ill, yet omitted this diagnosis to originate from the courts hired psych. In the Australian Family court stats, nearly all of the mothers who are cut off from contact are deemed mentally ill. Dig a little deeper into the family court judgments and many abuse cases mostly the mother raising concerns lose contact because they were persistent and challenged the court.

The family court was so abusive during the Howard era that they trophied cases that were deemed to meet the "Parental Alienation Syndrome" criteria, a popular theory amongst the pseudo-psych legal community. It was popular largely because the family court could deliver cheap cases without addressing the abuse, whilst the protective parent was barred from contact and the ability to collect or provide any further evidence of its occurrence and thus providing a false sense of credibility towards family court decisions. The problem is that "Parent Alienation Syndrome" is largely debunked by the scientific community as the Dr who created it also supported pedophilia.

When the Australian was given a ten page letter by Melinda Stratton on her side of the story, they were constrained by the Family Court from publishing her concerns about sexual abuse by Ken Thompson. Yet, the media were not constrained to convey her as "Paranoid" or as an abductor. It would be too much of course, for the family court to convey this mother as a human being or focus on the child's real best interests, rather than its own interests.

Hinch Kicks Mum of Three Sleeping In Car

When mother of three, Michelle reached out to the media, Darren Hinch decided to take the redneck angle on things...

Michelle and her three children were forced to sleep in their family car after their home was "declared unsafe". A working mother of three went to friends homes to clean and prepare her children for school every morning so that she could maintain adequate care. She had made over 40 applications for housing to find herself being knocked back and further rejected when she informed them of her situation. Hinch living in his luxurious home filled with collectibles, claims that Michelles plight was a scam, because the court ordered a shared parenting arrangement.

On a radio interview, Cameron the father is allowed to speak of the mother in derogatory terms, whilst promoting his case to gain full custody. He offers his home to have the children full time until Michelle can get back on her feet knowing that this would increase her chances of losing more time with the children.

The father claims that this is the first he knew of the children being in the car, yet he informed Derryn that he had just had them in his home last week. Clearly, given the children's ages that the children would have informed him of their situation. The only reason why children at this age would withhold such information is if they were afraid of him or what he might do. Research on a large portion of family court cases revealed that most fathers who pursue custody through the court usually possess intimate partner violence tendencies. Michell's father informed Hinch that Cameron had forced her and the children out of the home by demanding that the children have their own room each. This means that she must look for a 4 bedroom property in Dandenong, Melbourne. According to realestate.com, there are no homes available for that price:

No Exact Matches Found: Results for

properties for rent with 4+ bedrooms less than $300 per week in Dandenong, VIC 3175

Michelles father also informed hinch that the children do not want to reside with the father for reasons raised within the case. Whilst he did inform the grandfather that he was restricted by section 121 of the Family Law act where the details of the proceedings were not to be discussed.

Yet, Hinch claims that because Michelle refrained from breaking the Family Law Act by informing the public that the shared parenting orders had restricted her and the children from living in the home and reported that it was deemed "unsafe to live in" which is a safe interpretation that the children were required by order to have separate rooms.

There of course is always more to the story where there are Family Court orders. The public humiliation of this mother as a "scammer" for not breaking the order, was appalling even for Hinch and his listeners standards. At the end of the day, Michelle is robbed of a home to provide in the children whilst the draconian Family court made orders tailored for men to resemble the divorce proceedings over 100 years ago where children and women remain the property of men.

Calling All Angels- Finally a Real Campaign for children

 

There have been many dodgy campaigns in the so called "rights for children", but are in reality only there for the sole purpose of securing the child as though they were a piece of property.  Statistics can be skewed all they like, but at the end of the day most children are better off with their mothers after divorce.  Nature knows it, criminologists know it and deep down we all knew it, but because the shared parenting campaign sold as well as the renown pyramid scheme - we all fell for it.  Religious commentators might say that it was like scientists "playing god", but in this case it was male supremacists, robbing motherhood.  In their own sense of paranoid delusions, they thought that single motherhood was an "invasion of feminism", but its not.  Its mothers working extremely hard through all of the hate set against them to raise their children to become strong and good human beings.  That is all, no matter how one tries to paint it, there is no more.  Now, because children's rights have never been so appalling along with women's rights, mothers have embraced feminism like never before.  The support every year for the white ribbon campaign grows every year and more people, whether men's groups like it or not are beginning to see through the FRs hatred and propaganda.  I can be very thankful to learn that Australians are certainly not a dumb country as much as these vial groups represent.  The more violent incidents against women and children, the more people begin to know who is the real problem.  The continued support by dads in distress, dads on air members and even fathers4equality of a known perpetrator is a statement in itself that reveals what this group is truly about: Its not about and never was about men's rights - it was abusers rights.  The right to conceal, the right to punish victims, the right to continue their terror unchallenged and most of all: The right to have judicial authority to continue to do this.  

Know that there is indeed a war on children and motherhood.  

Know that a critical mass can stop this

Know that the courts are accomplices in some of the most disgusting crimes of the century beyond 9/11  If we put all of the victims of this child and mother massacre: it would be classified as the greatest act of terror and genocide by the state and its actors.  

 

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Its not shared parenting: Its dads getting full custody

Some may wonder as to why members of the shared parenting council often celebrate, commend and applaud   the removal of a mother from a child's life.  That's because if they straight out said that they want all fathers to get full custody, no one would support them.  Shared Parenting is merely a tool for that and does not reflect the consistency in care that was provided for the children before separation.  Shared Parenting is a pathway for full custody.  

The expectations on mothers are exhaustive and so we are naturally set up for failure. Then there are those who look at our gorgeous children as if they are window shopping for mantelpieces to trophy in their lounge room.  In a world where money can buy everything(or so they market people to believe), they begin to calculate how they can wear down that mother so she will hand over that child. As though we are merely pedigree show dogs that are breeding the next batch of wonders. Today's favorite sport is not football or tennis as society bores of the ballgames - It is "who is going to get that baby." Its an intellectual sport where the player must convince the lawmakers that it is a morally superior act and should be done for the sake of the child. It is an unfair sport perhaps no different to the rabbit on a greyhound course flighting a group of dogs gone wild. The rabbit of course is the mother and the greyhounds are the team that works together in competition to rip the child away from the mother. 

Some gnaw away at the emotionality of the cruel process, pointing at every turn, "She is not mentally fit to be a mother, she is crying - She must be depressed!". The usually the crowd goes wild as they scramble in to seize the moment grabbing the child whilst the mother is still weak. The umpire in the game turns his head whilst the bribes are pushing at the seams of his back pocket. How many times have you heard a radio station offer a contestant large sums of money to lie for the audiences amusement? Since the alienation craze spread through the family courts, mothers have been losing children left right and center. They actually call protecting - "Maternal gate keeping" and thats a reason for a mother to lose a child.

In UK, mothers who have had history of violence used against them have their children not only removed -but adopted out. Its a nice little system where social workers are paid $3000 when the child is adopted. Not only do they play a sport that contemporary society considers, "Fun", but they get paid to do it. De-mothering is sadly not restricted to the UK, but everywhere and as the enthusiasm drives this culture, justifying it for empty reasons - We are going to need an Olympics devoted to the entire sport. Why we don't have it on television already? Perhaps just seeing it would expose how barbaric some members of our society truly are.

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Australia's Family Court Triage System

We don't get much news on the Family Court because of the secrecy provisions. Few researchers are allowed access to court records. Fewer statistics are made publicly available and are often selective no different than the climate deniers research where years were purposely removed to convey propaganda. What we do know is that there is a very small portion of children being protected from child abuse and an even smaller portion of women protected from family violence. "No Contact" cases are as low as 6%, despite 98.5% of fatal crimes committed against children were by a family member.

The acknowledgement that violence against women is disproportionate to violence against men in intimate partner relationships, is outside the confines of the family law research community.

Fused with a male dominated court culture where women lawyers obtain few positions and opportunities to appear before the court, the culture creates an atmosphere of contempt for mothers and a proprietary view of children. The court deals with both property and children within the same venue as if there were little difference. Psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers are internal and external experts are dismissed as the court contains patriarchal views.

A paper called, "Bad Mothers and invisible fathers" is correct to challenge the courts ignorance and negligence towards children and mothers experiencing family violence. The last two reforms have only made these cases worse and the consequences less visible to a public that would challenge them. The hierarchy of priority in Family Court cases is clear within its judgements as it is in the picture this article accompanies. The most important thing to the courts is funding and this is reflected in the way its programs are presented. For instance, the Magellan program is renown for its "efficiency" in dealing with child abuse. In other words, like the federal magistrates court the focus is to cut as many corners as possible with more cases and the exorbitant amounts of money that accompanies it. There is of course a great need to ensure that there is adequate funding for necessary luxuries such as fine bone china that costs 60k alone. The next level of importance is to serve the gender that is more likely to preserve their expensive taste and of course the gender that a male dominated culture can understand and relate with. The angry men's groups rhetoric is well served amongst this culture and in fact the differences are only in the dressing up of the language.

The mothers and children are of course at the bottom of the family court food chain. If the child does not support the fathers wishes, then their voice is unheard. If the mother raises violence, her claims are often treated by the courts as a 'nuisance", rather than something to be aware of.

Despite consistent global research supporting the fact that child abuse and family violence allegations are mostly true, the family court treats every allegation as though it were false. Evidence is routinely overlooked, no matter what the members have gone through to acquire it and most disturbing is the restriction of children to have access to specialists that can determine either way. The court in fact refers to such investigations as, "medical abuse". It is beyond clear that there is a crisis in Australian Family Courts. It is obvious that key stakeholders must be proactive in changing the culture to provide a safer standard to both the children and mother who is enduring family violence.

When family violence occurs, the focus needs to ensure that all victims are safe from harm. This is the only circumstances where the child and the parents best interests should be considered on the same level. Finding ways to stop family violence in the therapy area, is the job of the therapists and simply making orders of contact for all but the perpetrator to endure is not going to make the problem go away. The choice to cease those behaviours is the choice of the perpetrator alone. All members of society have tried different antidotes to convince the perpetrator to cease the violence to no avail. Most of the time attempts that have involved continuing the relationship has only exacerbated the situation. The power to abuse is what needs to be removed and considering some of the positions perpetrator's pursue, it can be a very difficult task at that.

The Family Court Could Save Lives

Asia (from left), Jarius and Grace Osborne with their grandmother. The family wants the children returned to the Waikato for burial. (source: nz herald)

A recent tragedy in Melbourne could have been avoided, but victims of family violence know that they cannot be protected by the courts. Only a tiny fraction of family violence victims were given the grace to go into hiding and provide a stable upbringing for their children.

In the Sunday Herald Sun, the mother of the victims in the Melbourne Murder suicide broke her silence when articles on the father portrayed him as a saint and the tragedy as, "unforeseen".

She was a victim of domestic violence who was forced to leave without the children. She told of how she secretly watched over her children and how authorities failed to intervene.

"My heart breaks because . . . he had tried to commit suicide with an overdose of tablets (six months ago). Weren't they concerned about the welfare of the three children if the father was doing that?"

"I was threatened from him. He had threatened me when I moved to Australia that if I was to take the children back to New Zealand - he took their passports, everything away from me,"

In some cases, emergency court proceedings have been made to protect children and others have been made to pursue children when the parent has absconded with the child. When this mother raised this with the police six months ago, an emergency order could have been made.

Unfortunately Family Courts routinely deny children and mothers the right to be safe and protected from this. Some proceedings even undermine restraining orders. The system must work together to prevent future occurrences like these tragedies from happening.

Court Like Communist China

Australians are well aware of Chinas censorship laws among other human rights atrocities committed in China. The Department primarily responsible for censorship in China is called, "Central Propaganda department". All information that is against Chinas communist beliefs are censored and those who speak out are persecuted for such actions.

As demonstrated in Samantha Gratwick's article, "The Secrecy Law Scandal" media that is aligned with the beliefs of the Australian Family Court is not restricted, but media that is against the Family Courts are censored and persecuted.

Amnesty International widely publicized a case where China had forcibly confined a blogger to a psychiatric institution for expressing opinions against the beliefs of communism.

In Australian Family Courts most cases where children have lost most or even all contact with their mothers is due to mental illness and reasons not specified:

In a thesis by Amanda Shea Hart, "Children Exposed To Domestic Violence: Whose 'Best Interests' in the Family Court?" are some disturbing revelations contrary to Chisholm findings. In the Chisolm report, he stated that no research has found a gender bias in family court proceedings and based a lot of his assumptions upon the Wingspread family violence conference, a conference highly recommended by mens groups. Her findings are consistent to anyone who takes the time out to read more than ten judgement of family court cases involving family violence. The following common statements are used towards mothers who raise abuse or family violence in Family Court proceedings:

The next are common statements about violent fathers effect on children after contact is forced upon the child:

Children who resist contact are also pathologised:

This is also consistent to global findings in other Family Courts that are often used as a platform for male hegemony and continuing the prevalence of violence against women and children. As demonstrated on the selective statistics provided on the family court page, where the mother does not consent she is less likely than the father to have contact with the children.

The Chisholm report did reveal that most consent cases were made under coercion and the family courts did overlook these cases. A recent news report recently demonstrated that mothers who raise child abuse were being unfairly labelled as mentally ill by the family court.

Where there is evidence of post traumatic stress disorder, the court is more likely to focus on the effectiveness of care that the victim could provide rather than what created the illness:

In a sense survivors of family violence are people who have experienced human rights violations and actively seek to defend human rights. The court in turn reacts as the Chinese government by suppressing and instigating further violations until the victim has accepted the violence and in compliance to the political doctrine. Whilst there are different levels of violations in both comparisons where both have produced extreme experiences, one is well known to the world as a violation, but the other remains unseen with a potential for ongoing danger if not properly addressed.