Fighting Over the Kids
Battered spouses take aim at a controversial custody strategy.
*Battered spouses take aim at a controversial custody strategy.
I cried when I read the following article from Newsweek, and I'm going to go and get a copy just for this story. There is hope, and we are making a difference!!!!!
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UAADV has a group for Non-Custodial Mothers, who group together and network to help each other through the travestries of what they are enduring. These women network with other organisations, with lawyers, advocates, and those that are in the fight against what is being done to them. Finally, someone is listening! This gives hope to all of those that have been fighting in silence. Thank You Newsweek for helping Break the Silence!!!!!!
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Too many times this happens, too many children are suffering with the abuser they saw hitting their Mother. Remember, they aren't abused or hurt once they are hit, right???? As long as the Father has never hit a child, he is a good Father, right????? Too many judges don't understand the psychological affect DV in the home has on our children. Too many times DV Survivors loose their children to their abuser, because he knows how to play the system. 90% of the Non-Custodial Mothers we have on our list are also DV Survivors, that isn't by accident!
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PAS (Parent Alienation Syndrom) is used too often, and too affectively, by abusers to take away the children and retain control of the victim they can no longer abuse physically. They continue to psychologically abuse the Mother, financially abuse her through Child Support that she is hard pressed to pay and doesn't want to pay her abuser (I know that if I was an NCM, and my abuser could afford to support my children, I wouldn't give him a dime and would happily go to jail). Continually smears her name and lies to courts about what a bad Mother she is to keep the kids away from him, because he can! Once an abuser has the support of the system, there is no way a NCM can fight back! So many horror stories, so many lost children. How better to hurt their former victims then to take away her children?????
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*Newsweek Health
Sept. 25, 2006 issue - It took six years for Genia Shockome to gather the courage to leave her husband, Tim. He pushed her, kicked her and insulted her almost from the moment they married in 1994, she says. She tried to start over with their children when the family moved from Texas to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. It didn't last long. Tim called her constantly at work and, after they split up, pounded on her door and screamed obscenities, she alleged in a complaint filed in 2001. Tim was charged with harassment. As part of a plea deal, Tim agreed to a stay-away order—but denies ever abusing her or the children. In custody hearings over the past six years, Tim has insisted that he's been a good father, and argued that Genia's allegations poisoned their children against him. The judge sided with Tim. This summer he was granted full custody of the kids, now 11 and 9. Genia was barred from contacting them.
There's a small but growing movement to ban parental alienation in custody cases, sparked by embattled parents bonding online. They've linked with lawyers and advocates for battered spouses across the country. At least four states, including California, have laws protecting parents who make good-faith abuse allegations. Others may soon follow their lead. Greg Jacob, an attorney who takes cases for abused parents pro bono, is drafting legislation to shop to Virginia and Maryland next month. Meanwhile, parents like Genia keep fighting. "It's so hard, having my children lost," she says, her voice breaking. "This was my life—my children."
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