Further information has been provided by the MP hosting a debate tomorrow in Westminster, looking at Fathers’ Rights during divorce.
The debate, which will be held in one of Westminster’s committee rooms, has been set up by Suella Fernandes MP. The agenda for the evening has been put together by Fathers’ Rights group Families Need Fathers Cymru, although they appear to have changed tack and are now attempting to call themselves a children’s rights group. We’re not very big on labels, especially when they look like a PR exercise, so you can decide for yourself if the debate below focuses on children or not.
The list of topics for the evening has now been added on the event’s page, and we add them below too for ease of reference:
- Shared parenting, for example a rebuttal presumption of shared parenting;
- Enforcement of Child Arrangement Orders;
- No-fault divorce;
- The enforceability of prenuptial agreements;
- Financial remedies and maintenance upon divorce;
- Rights for cohabiting couples;
- Opening up family courts.
The event’s page tells us that the debate has been inspired by Suella’s failed Private Members Bill looking at creating a presumption of shared parenting in law and more rigorous enforcement of court orders. These issues have historically been ones Fathers’ Rights groups have campaigned on.
As for the rest of the agenda, it also features topics that men tend to favour when discussing divorce and separation, with ‘opening up family courts’ being used in this context to try to raise awareness of the issues they feel are important.
Whilst we don’t believe for a moment that all women are blameless and all men are monsters in divorce, we have always been cynical of Families Need Fathers’ ability to truly place children at the heart of these matters. We also don’t believe a presumption of shared parenting will achieve the desired outcome of ensuring children spend time with both their parents.
As an aside, if you’re looking for a Fathers’ charity that understands how to put children first and offers the kind of support fathers really need, we highly recommend DadsHouse, the UK’s leading charity for dads, which also pioneered temporary accommodation for fathers during divorce and separation, in Europe.
Interestingly, Suella doesn’t mention the Conservatives’ Manifesto in the event’s agenda, which we suspect is the underlying reason for this debate. We also think Suella and her Tory colleagues have set up this debate as a Fathers’ Rights event to work a little like a dangling carrot. They may be hoping that their initiatives, which include trying to financially incentivise marriage, will appeal to fathers.
We would be interested to hear about the debate if you’re attending, so do stop by and let us know what you thought of it.
Researching Reform 
FNF is a Government funded fraud which has done nothing to help since it started in 1973.
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FNF have not received a penny of government funding for years.
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Reblogged this on Musings of a Penpusher and commented:
Still the questions keep coming.
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This German father still wants to see his 14 year old child who has been abducted twice from the Mother from Malta to UK.
There were three hearings at the European Parliament:
https://archive.org/details/20140319PetitionSpeechDiscussion12292013EN
https://archive.org/details/20141111BrusselsPetition12292013KZCompleteEN
https://archive.org/details/20151203EuropeanParliamentPetitonSpeechDiscussion12292013EN
UK has never enforced any contact order.
Latest after Brexit, UK should be willing to send him out of the country for holidays or even more to Germany.
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Reblogged this on World4Justice : NOW! Lobby Forum..
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What does “Opening up Family Court” means? Secrecy!! What Suella should have asked for is for “All Family Court Cases should be OPEN to the Press and Public and Parliament should ensure that Judges apply the Law, Human Rights and not make their own one-sided decisions which then leaves Families and their loved ones devastated for life. Families should “always” be RPR and not any unknown OS {Litigation Friend}.
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Expose family courts, To protect the public of injustice, stop Soscail workers fabrication and manipulation, every “professional” Involved in child protection case’s will manipulate reports to the benefit of the managers decision, every professional involved will be working together to remove your children .
“Professionals” are never ever questioned.
They know best! Every child matters.
If there’s no government corruption why is there such secrecy and need for family courts?
They remove your children because they can, the family court has been invented so “Professionals” can do and say what they like!
Once it goes to family court you can kiss your children goodbye. It’s heartbreaking!
Your FACTUAL EVIDENCE will not be presented, no Solicter will question the authority’s neglect or deceit.
You will be astonished and amused of the fabricated reports about your family, all witnesses used only in helping remove your children.
Soscail services and LA need to be held accountable for abuse and intimidation.
They are allowed to get away with murder, Literally!
EXPOSE THE CORRUPTION IN THE UK!
REUNITE FAMILIES!
FINANCIAL COMPENSATION FOR FAMILIES RIPPED APART! EXPOSE THE GUILTY, PUT THEM IN JAIL, WHERE CHILD ABUSERS AND FRAUDULENCE CRIMINALS BELONG!!
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https://goo.gl/yXV3RH
Suella Fernandes MP presented a Family Justice Bill to Parliament, calling for better enforcement of Child Arrangement Orders, a rebuttable presumption of shared parenting and for a Commission to make recommendations of reform of our out of date family justice system.
One of the most powerful and hard hitting presentations ever delivered on the matter.
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“although they appear to have changed tack and are now attempting to call themselves a children’s rights group. We’re not very big on labels, especially when they look like a PR exercise, so you can decide for yourself if the debate below focuses on children or not.”
Well Natasha, I am totally supporting that initiative and its about time too. The UN recognises the right of the child to know their parents. It is the child’s right, not the parent’s right. The parent only has responsibility to protect those rights of the child and an alienating parent is not just failing but intentionally abusing it. This is a child protection issue and should be dealt with as such by the state.
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There’s no point in changing labels if there’s no change in the purpose of a Group, but I’m not sure why there seems to be so much antipathy towards them. I don’t see this antipathy directed towards specific women’s support groups, and as far as I’m aware there is no equivalent ‘Mum’s House’. However, I have not yet seen a total rebuttal of the claims made by, I think, two women’s groups, that FNF made threats and derogatory comments about women (R.R. passim). Have they issued a total rebuttal?
Surely we can put aside this gender divide in the interests of our children? And stop insulting each other? If we really are trying to ‘put children first’ then I think we should be united as a FAMILY movement. It’s no good criticising the Family Court system and its acolytes for claiming to put children first, if we ourselves do not. And, like all wars, the female/male conflict does not – cannot – put children first. Parental alienation of any child should become recognised as a criminal act, and at present is exacerbated and often condoned by the Family Court – opening up to the press etc. would at least stop the worst excesses of this I would think.
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It’s not just fathers that are alienated, it’s disgusting and cruel, it needs to be stopped. The campaign should encourage both willing perants are involved in the children’s life’s as fairly as possible, with the best possible outcome for the children.
The campaign should be,
stop all perantal alienation!
Put your children’s needs first!
I find it offensive the campaign is only fighting justice for fathers, it also happens to innocent loving mothers!
Unfortunately both men and women are guilty of using the innocent children to hurt the ex spouse!
It’s cruel and needs to be stopped!
The children belong to both of you, it should be shared, and children should not used as a weapon!
The government helps contribute to prenatal alienation when Soscial services are involved!
The government needs to concentrate on helping building strong family foundations for the sake of our children who are the future.
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#90MOTHERS – the realities of Family Violence and the Family Courts.
Every year in Australia, approximately #90Mothers are killed by their husband or male partners during incidents of Domestic Violence. Many thousands more suffer serious injuries such as brain damage and damage to their internal organs, as such violence frequently occurs during the latter stages of pregnancy. Many thousands of Mothers suffer Post Traumatic Stress during and after violent assaults and living every moment waiting for the blows to begin, and fearful if they will be the next on the list of the dead Mothers.
Such Post Traumatic Stress has frequently been compared to the traumas suffered by Combat Soldiers on the frontline in battle zones. It is also similar to the traumas of prisoners kept in solitary confinement as their attackers have usually stripped them of their friends and relatives, and have isolated them from everyone who might have been able to support them. They are often subjected to mental and physical tortures and torment as their assailants seek complete power and control over them. This leads to debilitating interference in their thought patterns, and psychological confusions.
Eventually, some mothers are able to escape, usually taking their children with them. But that is far from the end of their sufferings. Firstly, many of the dead mothers were killed during the period immediately after their escape as their attackers seek revenge for being rejected and their perceived humiliation that a woman partner has left them.
The children also suffer extreme traumas during the violence and are themselves abused in every possible way. So the period after escape often enables them to begin to act out their terrors and frustrations with the only parent they can trust to absorb their angers, their mothers. Many children have also been killed by Vengeful Fathers who take the children’s lives in order to punish their Mothers. E.g. Darcey Freeman, the F3 Farquharson boys, Yassmin Acar, Luke Batty and many, many others.
The torture and torment of the Mothers then continues in the Family Courts system. Mothers naively believe that the Family Courts will protect them from the violence and abuse, yet most commonly the opposite occurs. The Family Courts, in fact, give paramountcy to protecting the parental rights of the violent abusers.
Mothers are coerced or placed under duress to agree to their violent abuser having contact with the children, yet knowing he wants to use such contact to inflict further harm on her and the children, and this frequently happens as she foresees. If the Mother refuses to be cowed by his and her own lawyers into dropping the charges of violence and abuse, then she risks losing the custody of her children to the abuser and this is now a frequent occurrence.
Even convictions for child sexual abuse and violence are ignored or disregarded by the Courts, as well as DVOs, AVOs and Restraining Orders and even the substantiated evidence of Police and Child Protection Authorities (see for example Glavas and Forsyth 2017). When the Family Courts Order the children into a Shared Parent arrangement with the violent abuser, the torture and torment begins. The children are abused or neglected in his care, or he denies phone contact for the mother with the children during their time with him or he cuts the calls if the children report that they are unhappy for any reason. Ultimately under such harassment and provocations, some Mothers stop the contact only to find the punishments by the Courts become even more fierce – they are imprisoned, and/or ordered to pay the massive Court costs, and worst of all, the Courts perversely give full custody to the violent abuser, with little or no contact for the Mother.
These are the realities of what happens to Mothers who suffer Domestic Violence and then the subsequent abuse and torture by the Family Courts and to which many thousands of mothers in Australia and worldwide would testify to in full or in part and even more extensively, if they were given the opportunity at a Public Inquiry or to a Royal Commission.
Politicians, the Media, and society can no longer disregard, ignore, or pose apathetically towards this treatment of Mothers and their Children and ignore the facts of their deaths, and serious injuries.
The World must know and the World must act……..
#90MOTHERS.
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The sad truth is the vast majority of the wider public dont even realise exactly is going on family courts. So sadly untill there is more public outcry. Little will be done
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