GENEVA (4 November 2022) – UN experts today urged Brazil’s new government to axe a ‘parental alienation’ law that can lead to discrimination against women and girls, particularly in family court custody battles.
Family courts regularly dismiss allegations of sexual abuse of the children brought forward by the mothers against their fathers or stepfathers, disbelieving and punishing mothers, including through the loss of custody rights to their children.
We are gravely concerned about the underlying gendered stereotypes that contribute to the legitimation of the concept of parental alienation and its resort mainly against women when the court decision regards the right to custody or guardianship. Such gendered stereotypes are profoundly discriminatory, as the testimonies of women who claim their children are abused are being dismissed or considered of inferior value and credibility. These profoundly discriminatory approaches essentially result in a miscarriage of justice and the continued exposure of mother and child to abuse, life threatening situations and other violations of their fundamental freedoms.
We note with concern the disturbing consequences for mothers, many of whom have had no option but to remain silent regarding the abuse of their children by their partner or former partner, out of fear of being accused of parental alienation and loosing custody rights.
The use of parental alienation and similar concepts contributes to the banalisation of violence against women and girls in Brazil, where a high level of domestic violence against children, in particular girls, takes place against the backdrop of a continued high level of femicide for the past decade.
Category: Domestic Violence
Foster care: NSW launches review of out-of-home care sector
The plight of two boys in out-of-home care in NSW has been detailed in a court case that has sparked an urgent government review of the multimillion-dollar sector.
The state government has ordered an immediate review of out-of-home care services for children in NSW, following claims two boys were left hungry and too cold to go to school this year while their care provider sought thousands of dollars a day to look after them.
In a devastating assessment of the sector, a children’s court magistrate has detailed the “unconscionable” treatment, “appalling neglect” and “failure” in care by providers, including Lifestyle Solutions, and the NSW Department of Communities and Justice.
Source: Foster care: NSW launches review of out-of-home care sector
Only 3 per cent of women fleeing family violence receive the long term housing they need
New analysis shows only 3 per cent of women fleeing family violence received long term housing for the 2020 and 2021 financial years.
The Nowhere to Go report highlights that domestic and family violence makes a woman’s home the least safe place she can be and that getting to safety often means finding a new place to live. A lack of affordable housing therefore forces many women to choose between homelessness or returning to their perpetrator and the risk of violence.
Source: Only 3 per cent of women fleeing family violence receive the long term housing they need
UN Human Rights Council Takes on the Custody Crisis
The United Nations Human Rights Council is taking on the Custody Crisis!
A press release was issued last week by the office of the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women with a Call for Input from human rights organizations and other stakeholders on the topic of discrimination against women in custody cases.
You can participate by filling out a survey (see below for more info).
This is the first time a mechanism of the UN HRC has prioritized this issue and initiated an inquiry. It is a leap forward in our efforts to get it officially recognized as a human rights violation. The Women’s Coalition has previously submitted three petitions, which have likely contributed to them initiating this inquiry.
The Special Rapporteur, Reem Alsalem, will use the information collected for a report that will be presented next year at the Human Rights Council session in June, to the Economic and Social Council session in October, and orally to the Commission on the Status of Women.
The main purpose of the inquiry is to examine ways in which family courts ignore violence against women and children in custody cases and take their children from them. They refer to this as a “double victimization”.
The tendency to dismiss the history of domestic violence and abuse in custody cases extends to cases where mothers or children have brought forward credible allegations of child physical or sexual abuse.
Another main focus of their inquiry is the ways in which “parental alienation” and related concepts are being used consistently against women.
The stated goal of their undertaking is to shed light on this vital issue and to recommend the creation of international standards “to uphold the principles of non-discrimination and the best interests of the child” in custody cases.
National feminist organizations break their silence on Amber Heard in an open letter
The letter denounces the “rising misuse” of defamation lawsuits to silence people who report domestic and sexual abuse.
The letter, . . . was signed by groups like the National Organization for Women, the National Women’s Law Center, Equality Now and the Women’s March Foundation. It was written by a group of people who identify as domestic violence survivors and supporters of Heard.
Heard filed a brief last month laying the groundwork to appeal a seven-person jury’s decision in Virginia’s Fairfax County Circuit Court to award Depp $10 million in compensatory damages and $5 million in punitive damages in June. Heard, who had countersued, was awarded $2 million in compensatory damages but nothing in punitive damages.
The jury’s decision was a legal vindication for Depp, who lost a libel case in the United Kingdom two years ago over claims that he had physically abused Heard. Justice Andrew Nicol ruled against Depp in 2020, saying a British tabloid had presented substantial evidence to show that Depp was violent against Heard on at least 12 of 14 occasions.
A spokesperson for the group behind the letter, who asked to remain anonymous because of the online harassment she has faced for posting in support of Heard, said she believes that after the trial “individuals were afraid to speak out because they saw what was happening to the few who had.”
The vilification and harassment of Heard and her supporters were “unprecedented in both vitriol and scale,” the letter says.
“If this can happen to Amber Heard, it will discourage other women from speaking up and even filing reports about domestic violence and sexual assault,” Spillar said.
Source: National feminist organizations break their silence on Amber Heard in an open letter
Children Forcibly Returned To Abusive Settings Under Hague Convention | EachOther
The intention of the convention was to prevent a parent who was not the primary carer of the child from abducting them. However, a report from the European Parliament found that the use of the Hague Convention has “radically changed” from this aim. Today 73% of parents who take children to another country are mothers, who are almost always the primary carer of the child.
Dineen says that forcing a parent who has taken a child into another country to return them can put people experiencing domestic abuse from their partner at risk.
“If mothers take the children [to another country], they invariably go back with the children to try and continue to safeguard them [if children are returned under the convention],” she says. “And then that puts them into an even more seriously dangerous situation.”
Statistics show that in 65% of cases, the parent who has taken the child has been ordered to return them.
There is a defence concerning ‘grave risk’ for the child, but Dineen says this is interpreted in a “very narrow way” that does not account for the impact on a child of witnessing domestic abuse against a parent.
Fawcett says it needs to include an “extra defence” to account for the risk of domestic abuse from one parent against the other, and the impact of witnessing domestic abuse on a child. Coercive control, which is now a criminal offence in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, is not considered to be a form of domestic abuse in many countries signed up to the convention. The domestic abuse defence should include different forms of abuse, says Fawcett, such as psychological and financial abuse, as well as violence.
Dineen believes that the convention needs a “significant change”. She says the Hague Mothers would like to see it used only for its original intention – to safeguard the child. They would to exclude cases where a parent is fleeing from another because of domestic abuse.
Source: Children Forcibly Returned To Abusive Settings Under Hague Convention | EachOther
Trans paedophile stayed alongside vulnerable women & kids at refuge for 71 days after duping staff | The Sun
A TRANSGENDER paedophile duped staff into letting her(sic) stay for 71 days at a domestic violence refuge for vulnerable women and children.
Her(sic) disturbing past came to light only ten weeks later in September when managers are understood immediately to have called police.
The predator — who sexually assaulted a girl of ten in a supermarket toilet and secretly filmed another child — was taken into custody.
One refuge guest, a mum of three, told The Sun: “It’s horrific. As a victim of sexual abuse myself, the whole thing is triggering. I came here with my kids because I thought it was a safe place and to find out there was a paedophile living a few doors away for months is just horrendous.
“I saw her(sic) several times hanging around where the prams are parked, she(sic) is tall and skinny with long brown hair and always wore a blue surgical mask. The whole thing makes my skin crawl.”
She (sic) stayed in the refuge’s separate accommodation for trans survivors. There is a shared garden
Coercive control: How my father controlled my family for decades
A daughter recalls growing up in the grip of what we now call coercive control, but what she then thought were just her father’s ‘unique’ ways.
Source: Coercive control: How my father controlled my family for decades
The dilemma mothers face when they become victims of abuse abroad — child abduction or domestic violence – ABC News
The federal government is considering changing the law to ensure victims of domestic violence are not forced to send their children back to abusive partners under the requirements of an international treaty.
The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction was drafted more than 40 years ago, to ensure one parent could not remove a child from a country without the consent of the other parent.
However, many women argue that it forces them, and their children, to return to dangerous situations.
Article 13 of the Hague abduction convention states the return of a child can be rejected if the court decides there is a “grave risk of harm” or that the child’s return would place him or her in an “intolerable situation”.
However, Gina Masterton — a lawyer based in Brisbane who wrote her PhD thesis on the Hague convention — said that this is rarely applied in Hague cases involving domestic violence, because judges treat the convention as a jurisdictional law, even if significant evidence of domestic violence has been produced.
“Domestic violence to the mother is not considered by the courts to be abuse [of] the child.
When a court rules the child must be returned to the country they had fled, the mother is often faced with an unbearable predicament.
“The court can never order a mother to return and that’s what the judges like to say … they say: ‘You don’t have to go back, we’re ordering that the child is returned’,” Dr Masterton explained.
However, according to Dr Masterton, in most cases, mothers do return with their children because they don’t want to be separated from them, especially if they’re young.
“Out of the 10 women I interviewed for my PhD, only one woman didn’t return and she said that was because she knew she’d get killed if she did go back,” she said.
In one tragic case in 2008, English woman Cassandra Hasanovic — who had fled to Australia with her two sons — returned to the UK under the Hague abduction convention. She was then stabbed to death by her husband.
More than 90 countries are signatories to the Hague abduction convention and, with so many jurisdictions to consult, it’s a complex and lengthy task to amend.
However, Dr Masterton and campaigners are seeking several changes to Australia’s Hague Regulations in the Family Law Act, including adding a specific domestic violence defence, and restricting fathers with extensive criminal histories from filing return applications.
Free Her Speech: 2 lawyers ask how many more women will be silenced
Robinson and Yoshida first met while both working as junior barristers at Doughty Street Chambers in London and both united over a case that felt deeply unjust to them.
The case, which also happens to be their book’s opener, took place in the United Kingdom and involved a woman who’d shown police the red marks her ex-husband left on her throat when he violently grabbed her. Later on, the woman had written to the man’s new partner on Facebook in an attempt to warn the new partner of his history of violence, using the words “He tried to strangle me.”
“He then sued her for defamation,” says Robinson. “Because his new partner and some of her friends and family had seen the post. And he won, even though she had that police evidence.”\
The judge in the case ruled that the technical definition of strangulation means that someone does it with an intent to kill, and the judge found the man’s intent was to silence the woman, not to kill her.
“We were both so outraged by that. We decided to work together to try to intervene in the case, but the Supreme Court didn’t hear us,” says Robinson.
“So, really, that’s where the book came from. We decided to make all the arguments that we would have made had the Supreme Court let us in.”
Since their initial outrage, they’ve identified a trend of legal cases and civil litigation cases being brought against women, journalists, frontline services organisations, and friends and family speaking out against gender-based violence.
And this is not an isolated or country-specific trend but something that’s being seen all over the world.
One high profile example of this is a case that Robinson herself was involved in from the beginning– the defamation case that Johnny Depp took against his ex-wife, Amber Heard, and the Sun newspaper in London.
Robinson represented Heard and said: “We worked together and with the newspapers, to prepare the defence, and a judge ruled in 2020 that he found it to be true that Depp had violently assaulted her on 12 separate occasions.
“Fast forward, then he sues her in the United States for an op-ed in which she doesn’t name him. She describes herself as a survivor and a person who became a public figure as associated with domestic violence, which is a fact.”
Depp won the case in the US despite an outcome that Robinson describes as “absurd” and says that anyone who understands the law and the proclaiming jurisdiction that was set in London finds it absurd.
And anyone who’s been on TikTok or other social media platforms since that US court case will understand the intense villainization that Heard underwent after losing the second case.
Robinson says that one of the things most devastating about this outcome is having to ask “how many more women” won’t come forward publicly about their experience of abuse after hearing their friends and family mocking Heard on social media.
Robinson says: “When you look at a privacy case or a defamation case, the way the courts consider it is, really, her right to free speech balanced against his right to privacy or his right to protect his reputation.”
“Too much emphasis is being placed on privacy and reputation of men in the global context of where we have a pandemic of violence against women.”
Source: Free Her Speech: 2 lawyers ask how many more women will be silenced