Search results for: children domestic violence

Children Living With Domestic Violence Is A Public Health Issue

21 Thursday Sep 2017

Posted by in child abuse, Domestic Violence, Researching Reform

≈ 6 Comments

The government has started to rethink the way it addresses domestic violence within families, with a focus on how it affects children and the way in which perpetrators are dealt with.

Child protection professionals are being urged to put preventative measures in place, so that violent partners cannot go on to new families and engage in a cycle of domestic abuse. The current policies in place which work to separate families from their abuser do not prevent that abuser from moving on to different families and engaging in domestic violence with new family members.

There are several pieces of legislation which have been brought in to address childhood experiences of domestic violence:

Under the Serious Crime Act 2015 (section 76), a new offence of ‘controlling or coercive behaviour in an intimate family relationship’ came into force in December 2015.  This provision tells us that:

‘Any incident or pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are, or have been, intimate partners or family members regardless of gender or sexuality. The abuse can encompass, but is not limited to: psychological; physical; sexual; financial; and emotional.’

There is also the Adoption and Children Act 2002 (section 120), which extended the definition of ‘harm’ as defined under the Children Act 1989 to include:

‘..impairment suffered from seeing or hearing the ill-treatment of another.’

A joint report published on 19th September, by Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services and HM Inspectorate of Probation in Wales entitled “The multi-agency response to children living with domestic abuse – Prevent, protect and repair”, highlighted a number of failings and calls the widespread prevalence of domestic violence a public health issue.

Amongst the concerns raised by the report, the most significant related to how professionals were going about preventing domestic abuse and finding ways to repair the damage it causes. It found that very little was being done to address these areas, that the amount of research and guidance on tackling these issues was minimal and that more work needed to be done to create and implement effective prevention strategies.

Just as importantly, the report noted that a long term approach to protecting children from domestic violence in the home needed to be established. Current policies which damaged children further were also highlighted. Requiring a child and non violent family member to relocate in order to avoid the perpetrator isolates children from their friends, family and school, and was cited as one such example of further and prolonged damage to children experiencing domestic abuse.

Alarmingly, child protection agencies appear to be routinely ignoring the perpetrator of abuse, placing far too much emphasis on the victim as the solution to the problem. The report does well to highlight the fact that separation can often lead to more violence. We know from research that the first few weeks of separation from a violent partner are often the most high risk – we also know that there is a spike in domestic violence when the non violent partner decides to leave the home.

The report also highlights an ongoing lack of understanding about how domestic violence affects children, which is deeply worrying, with some agencies not even asking about the welfare of children involved, at all.

Information sharing between agencies, one of our big bug bears, continues to be an issue, and low level awareness all round about how abuse affects children prevails, despite the new laws above that have been put into place.

It’s a depressing report.

However, the report is part of a wider picture which is emerging, as government bodies and members of the judiciary try to raise awareness and ensure that children are protected.

Five days before the report was published, The President Of The Family Division Sir James Munby, released a revised Practice Direction which he wrote on 7th September, looking at the impact of domestic violence on children. Practice Direction 12J, which deals with children and partners exposed to domestic violence, was amended to include an expanded definition of domestic abuse, new rules about information contained in court orders, and a call to all judges to familiarise themselves with the Practice Direction amid cries that it just wasn’t being implemented.

This is an extract from a statement Munby published on Family Law last week:

“The new PD12J contains numerous amendments, many of important substance. Here, I highlight only two:

  1. There is (see para 3) a new and much expanded definition of what is now referred to as ‘domestic abuse’, rather than, as before, ‘domestic violence’.
  2. There are mandatory requirements (see paras 8, 14, 15, 18, 22, 29) for inclusion of certain specified matters in the court’s order. I appreciate the additional burden that this may impose on judges and court staff, but there is good reason for making these requirements mandatory and they must be complied with.

There have been recurring complaints in Parliament and elsewhere of inadequate compliance with PD12J. I am unable to assess to what extent, if at all, such complaints are justified. However, I urge all judges to familiarise themselves with the new PD12J and to do everything possible to ensure that it is properly complied with on every occasion and without fail by everyone to whom it applies.”

If these developments tell us anything, it is that we need an excellent digital resource which offers up to the minute information and guidance on every area of child protection, in a quick and easily digestible format. Something else we have been campaigning for, for many years. We very much hope the government will consider this idea more robustly now, as it presents an incredible opportunity not only to protect children properly, but to do so at low cost, ongoing.

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NEW: Protection Orders For Victims Of Domestic Violence Extended To Include Their Children (US)

04 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Domestic Violence, Researching Reform

≈ 5 Comments

In a groundbreaking move, the Washington Supreme Court in America has ruled that the children of domestic violence survivors can now receive protection orders against anyone who has abused their parents.

The judges’ decision was unanimous, and stemmed from the view that children exposed to domestic violence are deeply affected, even if they are not physically hurt. This is something we campaign on often, and there is a growing body of research which supports this school of thought.

In the judgment Justice Steven Gonzalez notes the effects of exposure to domestic violence on children:

“The harm caused by domestic violence can be physical or psychological … Scholarly research supports the conclusion that exposure to domestic violence is a simpler, more insidious method of inflicting harm…. While exposure to abuse may not leave visible scars, the secondary physical and psychological effects of exposure are well documented.”

The case involved a woman whose partner was facing domestic violence charges in court, including trying to choke her whilst threatening to kill her. They had a two year old son together. She was granted a Protection Order, which is the strongest civil protection order available in the state. The mother tried to extend the Protection Order to include her son, but her several applications were turned down. The Supreme Court then overturned the lower courts’ decision and granted her son a Protection Order.

The position in the UK is a little different. The decision was easily overturned in Washington due to a law which explicitly allows for domestic violence protection orders to protect victims’ loved ones. The UK has no such law.

Whilst some here might argue that the right to contact is a priority when deciding cases of this nature, we would argue quite strongly that the right to protection from harm must be considered before anything else.

What do you think? Should we have this kind of law here, or do you feel it could be abused by parents looking to get back at their partners?

Very many thanks to Charles Pragnell for alerting us to this development.

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Domestic Violence Between Parents DOES Affect Children

28 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by in Children, Family Law

≈ 11 Comments

We have always been very concerned by court orders which allow contact with a domestically violent parent on the grounds that the violence was between the parents themselves and not the children. However this new research highlights what we’ve said for many years: that domestic violence between parents does affect children and causes them direct harm. Whilst it doesn’t take a genius to work this out, it does, apparently, require research…..

The report goes on to explain that, “As well as witnessing the abuse of a parent, 62% of the children had experienced direct abuse in the form of physical abuse, emotional abuse or neglect. Despite this, just over half (54%) of these children were known to children’s social care services…

In most of the incidents the child abuse was perpetrated by the same person responsible for abusing the adult victim: usually the child’s father or their mother’s male partner.”

The report also notes that a quarter of the children displayed abusive behaviour usually directed at the mother, sibling or friend, rather than the abuse perpetrator. The charity responsible for this research (CAADA) estimates 130,000 children are at high risk of serious harm or death from domestic abuse, while hundreds of thousands more are exposed to abuse at lower risk levels.

The charity’s recommendations for dealing with this enormous problem are as follows:

  • Create a network of nominated lead professionals on domestic abuse and safeguarding across all agencies who work with families, with a shared understanding of risk assessment.
  • Provide linked specialist domestic abuse services for adults and children.
  • Monitor provision and outcomes for children exposed to domestic abuse.

What the charity does not address, is the heightened fear parents have, usually mothers, about coming forward. This may in part account for the huge discrepancy in numbers of children known to social services. The fear of social services taking these children away from these mothers, despite many of them being able to protect their children from harm (and come forward precisely because they have the courage and state of mind to do so) is often what keeps these cases hidden from support services.

Until social workers implement the recommendations above, improve their training levels and learn to work with and not against the alerting parent, we can expect to see many more cases go under the radar.

(For an interesting read from over the pond, do check out this article from the Stop Abuse Campaign.)

 

 

Contact At All Costs? Study Into Care Orders and Domestic Violence Highlights Family Courts’ Slow Progress.

15 Friday Feb 2019

Posted by in child welfare, Domestic Violence, Researching Reform

≈ 15 Comments

A thesis published in 2014 which claims to be the first in-depth national study into the operation and effect of a Practice Direction designed to address the issue of domestic violence within the context of care and child arrangement orders highlights the little progress achieved by the family courts, five years on.

The guidance explored in the research is Practice Direction 12J, which has become best known for its clause establishing the right to ask the judge at a hearing to step in and prevent victims and alleged victims of domestic violence from being cross examined by partners who have already been convicted of abusive behaviour or have been accused of such behaviour by the victim. Whilst this Direction is only guidance and does not have the same binding effect as law, the direction has to be considered by the judge.

Practice Direction 12J tries to ensure that any care or child placement orders do not cause a child harm where domestic abuse and violence is known to have occurred within the home. The Direction also requires the court protect the parent who has been abused, from further harm.

“Contact at all costs? Domestic Violence, Child Contact and the Practices of the Family Courts and Professionals”, was written by Adrienne Elise Barnett while she was at Brunel Law School, Brunel University. The thesis, which is over 400 pages long, is an incredibly thorough and thought-provoking look at how the law discriminates against mothers trying to protect their children from violent and abusive fathers.

On the use of Practice Direction 12J at least up until 2014, and the purpose of the study, Barnett says:

“Subsequent research and case law revealed that many courts and professionals disregarded these guidelines and continued to promote contact by minimising, trivialising or ignoring women’s concerns about continued contact with violent fathers. This raises questions about why contact between children and violent fathers is seen as not only permissible but positively desirable and why it is so hard for women to oppose such contact. These are questions that this study seeks to answer.”

Among the different sections dedicated to the relevant areas of family law, is a chapter on Presumption of contact which was written shortly before the law was amended to include a clause encouraging contact with both parents after fathers campaigned for greater visibility within child welfare policies.

Here is an extract from the chapter:

“At the heart of private law Children Act proceedings lies ‘the welfare of the child’, a ‘civilising’ device that has been selectively constructed by and in family law at different times and in response to different social, political and cultural demands, and which currently works to place fathers at the centre of children’s well-being after parental separation. By locating this dominant construct in its historical, political and material context, we have seen how it operates as a mechanism of power to reinstate and maintain the father in the post-separation family, and how it regulates and disciplines mothers by constraining their self determination.

The gendered relations of power that construct, underpin and sustain law’s current construction of ‘the truth’ about children’s welfare constantly challenge and subvert attempts to focus professionals and courts on protecting children and women in private law Children Act proceedings, and deny mothers the autonomy after parental separation that is unquestioningly afforded to fathers. The strong belief of nearly all of the professionals Vanessa Munro, Law and Politics at the Perimeter: Re-evaluating Key Debates in Feminist Theory (Hart 2007)  interviewed in the benefits of contact shows how law’s current construction of children’s welfare has acquired almost hegemonic status.

The dominant welfare discourse has become increasingly axiomatic and incontestable by marginalising and discrediting oppositional meanings about children’s welfare, and by trivialising and rendering irrational women’s reasons for opposing contact with non-resident fathers. This process is reinforced by unrelenting messages from the higher courts about the importance of contact, and the strenuous efforts made to promote it, even in cases of proven domestic violence.”

Despite a growing body of evidence coming to light that children suffer deeply when exposed to domestic violence, and the government’s acknowledgement that the law needs to change in order to better protect victims of abuse, little has happened since Barnett wrote her thesis in 2014.

The government has only just published a draft bill to address the issue of alleged domestic violence victims being cross-examined by alleged abusers in the family courts – despite the criminal courts having implemented similar legislation a long time ago. The Draft Domestic Abuse Bill contains nine measures, which will:

  • Provide for a statutory definition of domestic abuse
  • Establish the office of Domestic Abuse Commissioner and set out the commissioner’s functions and powers
  • Provide for a new Domestic Abuse Protection Notice and Domestic Abuse Protection Order
  • Prohibit perpetrators of domestic and other forms of abuse from cross-examining their victims in person in the family courts (and prevent victims from having to cross-examine their abusers) and give the court discretion to prevent cross-examination in person where it would diminish the quality of the witness’s evidence or cause the witness significant distress
  • Create a statutory presumption that complainants of an offence involving behaviour that amounts to domestic abuse are eligible for special measures in the criminal courts
  • Enable high-risk domestic abuse offenders to be subject to polygraph testing as a condition of their licence following their release from custody
  • Place the guidance supporting the Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme on a statutory footing
  • Ensure that, where a local authority, for reasons connected with domestic abuse, grants a new secure tenancy to a social tenant who had or has a secure lifetime or assured tenancy (other than an assured shorthold tenancy), this must be a secure lifetime tenancy
  • Extend the extra-territorial jurisdiction of the criminal courts in England and Wales to further violent and sexual offences.

Campaigners are saying that while the Bill is a step forward, it is not enough. Katie Ghose, Women’s Aid chief executive, told the Law Gazette in January: ‘Although this new law is much welcomed, it alone will not protect survivors in the family courts and challenge the “contact at all costs” approach by judges which is putting children in danger.”

Barnett’s thesis offers several interesting recommendations from presumption of contact to litigants in person, and the study in its entirety is very much worth a read. Five years on, protecting women from violent partners – and we mean genuinely abusive partners – is still a tall order for the family courts in Britain.

You can read the thesis here. 

Very many thanks to Dana for sharing this study with us.

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UK Family Courts Are Harming Children’s and Parent’s Mental Health

22 Tuesday Jan 2019

Posted by in Family Law, Researching Reform, social work

≈ 40 Comments

Complaints by families that their mental health is being badly affected by the way Britain’s family courts handle child protection and divorce proceedings are growing.

A rising number of service users on social media sites are reporting heightened levels of anxiety, depression and symptoms similar to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Some parents are also being diagnosed by counsellors and psychiatrists with mental health conditions including PTSD, which have come about during the Family Court’s handling of their cases.

Failures by councils, lawyers and police to properly investigate abuse and organise support early on are also causing concern. A new law suit filed against a UK council makes several allegations about the local authority’s handling of a public family law case, including failings around providing the applicant parent with proper psychiatric support.

The parent, who was a victim of domestic violence, was also not made aware of their right to obtain occupation and non-molestation orders, leaving them vulnerable to further harm.

The claim says the parent’s mental health was further aggravated by poor social work assessments filled with dangerous inaccuracies, and a psychiatrist’s report which was based on too brief a session to be able to come to any meaningful conclusions about the parent’s suitability to take care of their child.

The system’s less than robust framework and highly variable professional standards across the country are particularly dangerous in light of the serious nature of child protection cases.

One vulnerable mother who saw a psychologist after her mental health deteriorated during a child protection investigation was noted to have been re-traumatised by the process.

The psychologist stated in their report that the damage could have stemmed from forced therapy sessions and prolonged trauma associated with lengthy social work investigations which took place over a period of several years.

Not all families feel they can seek external help when child protection proceedings affect their mental health. Some parents are choosing not to reach out for support when they feel overwhelmed, claiming that the culture inside the system blocks families from being pro-active and protecting their health.

Several domestic abuse survivors have told this site that when they started to feel mild symptoms of depression as a result of controlling behaviour by a partner, they became fearful that councils would use the request for support as an excuse to remove their children from them and place their child with the abusive parent.

The perceived threat of removal in these cases is leaving a significant number of vulnerable parents without the mental health support they need and crucially, allowing their symptoms to get worse over time.

One mother told this site, “I don’t dare to seek help, as SS [social services] may use my mild depression and anxiety caused by coercive control as a reason to take my child and give him to my abuser.”

Being wrongly accused of abuse and experiencing the wrongful removal of a child can also be hugely damaging to parents’ mental health. While investigations are important and the need to establish whether a child is being harmed or is in danger is not in dispute, the current processes and policies around these assessments are primitive and often amount to emotional abuse.

Parents are being routinely accused of domestic abuse without any tangible evidence, often only through hearsay and a social worker’s personal preference for a parent. One mother we spoke to who is currently undergoing a child protection investigation told us that social workers were initially unable to find a reason to remove her child but seemed determined to make a care order.

After months of acute bullying, which included forcing the mother to take her son to a pre-adoption medical examination, the social workers in her case changed tack and claimed that her oldest son who has Asperger’s was a danger to her younger child after her eldest experienced an episode.

The council then applied for an adoption order. The protracted ordeal left the vulnerable mother, who had previously managed her pre-existing mental health conditions successfully, feeling so mentally unstable that she had to start taking her anxiety medications regularly again. She told Researching Reform, “I do feel the courts and LA [Local Authority] make the parents in this process subhuman. At times, they are even abusive themselves.”

There are also serious concerns around social workers not being able to distinguish between pre-existing mental health conditions and court-process induced mental health illnesses.

That confusion is so embedded inside the system that parents now suspect social workers of using the onset of poor mental health during proceedings as a quick and cost-effective way of removing children from parents rather than offering support and assistance.

Parents are often left to deal with heightened mental illness on their own after child protection proceedings. Some parents never fully recover from the unforgiving and impersonal family court process, while some try to find ways to cope with the legacy of a legal system that has yet to modernise.

As one parent explained, “The trauma doesn’t go away, there are always triggers. But I’ll pull myself back, I always do.”

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Top Social Work Professor: Adoption Works For A Minority Of Children.

23 Tuesday Oct 2018

Posted by in forced adoption, Researching Reform

≈ 12 Comments

One of the authors of the UK’s Adoption Enquiry has told a BBC programme investigating forced adoptions, that adoption is not a suitable alternative for most children.

Anna Gupta, a professor of social work at Royal Holloway University and co-author of the Adoption Enquiry report also told BBC Sounds that while parents are able to challenge adoptions, the process is so expensive that in practice mounting a legal challenge to an adoption is not available to most families.

The programme aired on 18th October and covered a range of topics, including forced adoption.

The segment on forced adoption began with a call from a grandmother whose daughter had died, after her grandchildren were taken into care. The grandmother explained that her daughter had been a victim of domestic violence, but was aware of the need to step away from her partner and focus on rebuilding her life, which the grandmother said she did with a good deal of success.

The grandmother then told the BBC presenter that the children’s father asked the mother for contact, and when the mother refused, the father went to social services. It was at that point that the children were taken away from the family. The grandmother told the programme that her daughter had given the children to her to look after whilst she got herself back up on her feet, and that this arrangement was working well. She went on to say that the social workers were unwilling to consider her as a carer for the children. The grandmother told BBC Sounds that she believed her daughter had died as a result of the social workers’ involvement in their case. No details were given about how the mother lost her life.

Anna then came on to the programme to speak. She began by telling the presenter that forced adoption was an unhelpful term because it implied that social workers had the right to remove children from parents when they did not, and that judges were the only professionals with the power to remove children from their current families. This is unfortunately not an accurate explanation of the term forced adoption.

Forced adoption refers to a policy which allows the state to remove a child from his or her parents with a view to putting that child up for adoption, without parental consent. As the term focuses on state powers, we can include the roles both social workers and judges have to play, in implementing the policy.

While Anna is right to suggest that only a judge can make an adoption order, legal powers are given to both social workers and judges to forcibly remove a child from his or her parents where a child is considered to be at risk of immediate, or future harm. If parents are considered to be unable to look after their children, long term arrangements to place children in other homes are then discussed by child protection teams.

This order of events, which is set out in our law and policy on child protection, means that the initial call for a child to be adopted is usually always made by a social worker.

The forced element of child removal is a key feature at almost every stage of the process. As social workers are often tasked with the initial removal, which can involve a child going to a care home or to stay with foster carers, removal in the early stages and the end result of that removal, which is often adoption, are interlinked.

Judges rely heavily on social workers’ reports in court, reports which judges expect will contain advice on what should happen to a child. Most of the time, if a social worker suggests that a child should be adopted, a judge will endorse and enforce that recommendation. This is partly because a judge has no other way of assessing the needs of a child in the case. That reliance places social workers in a position of considerable power, with the ability to not only suggest adoption as an option, but to influence the likelihood of an adoption as well. Without social workers’ reports, and expert evidence when it’s used, a judge is almost completely blind. In this way, the deeply integrated nature of the UK’s forced adoption model makes an attempt at separating social workers’ and judges’ roles within forced adoption, pointless.

Anna then goes on to say that whilst some European countries have the ability to use forced adoptions, none of these countries use that power to the same extent as the UK. She also talks about the need to look at the current adoption model in the UK, and the struggle parents face when trying to access support. She blames budget cuts alone for this difficulty, however the truth is more complicated. A defensive attitude towards child protection in the wake of high profile legal cases leading to substantial payouts, as well as a workforce which hasn’t been given robust enough training, all contribute to a tendency to remove children from parents rather than offer support.

Anna then discusses the issue of post adoption contact.  She tells BBC Sounds that post adoption contact for original, or biological families, is not the norm and that the system in relation to that kind of contact is closed. Contact for these families after adoption is rare, but the idea that the system is closed in this context is not right and misrepresents the legal position around post adoption contact. Active legislation offers provisions which not only enable contact, but make it compulsory for the court to consider it.

The Adoption and Children Act 2002, tells us that:

“Pursuant to s.46(6), before making an adoption order, the court must consider whether there should be arrangements for allowing any person contact with the child; and for that purpose the court must consider any existing or proposed arrangements and obtain any views of the parties to the proceedings.”

Added to this, sections 51A and 51B, which were inserted into the Adoption and Children Act 2002, by s.9 of the Children and Families Act 2014, give family judges the power to order contact, both before and after an adoption order is made.

What is also noteworthy, is that there is debate about whether or not the current law makes it harder for parents to apply for that contact. One of the issues with the legislation, is that the right to ask for contact is limited by virtue of who can apply. The law as it stands at the moment means that adopted parents and the children in question have an automatic right to make an application, but everyone else needs permission from the court to do so. The implications of that, when we look at legal costs and court bias, are enormous. Although Anna was not referring to this complication when she spoke, and of course holds different views to our own about the sector, we are grateful to her, and BBC Sounds for offering our campaign exposure and further opening up debate on forced adoption.

You can listen to the segment on forced adoption, on BBC Sounds’ webpage. The conversation runs for seven minutes and starts at 1:35:00.

If you’d like to sign our petition calling on the government to end forced adoption, you can do so here. 

Many thanks to Kellie Cottam for sharing this programme with us.

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Victims Of Domestic Violence Turning To Injunctions For Protection

24 Monday Sep 2018

Posted by in Domestic Violence, Researching Reform

≈ 17 Comments

Welcome to another week.

Figures recently obtained from the Ministry of Justice confirm that there has been a sharp rise in the number of domestic abuse victims seeking non molestation orders through the family courts. It has been suggested that victims are turning to the court system because police are failing to enforce the law.

Ministry of Justice data has revealed that the number of non-molestation orders granted last year was 25,707, indicating an increase of almost 10% since 2016. The number of orders issued also represents the highest for a decade.

The government is now being pressured by campaigners to pay for police training, rather than pass the financial burden on to police forces who are already struggling as a result of budget cuts and mounting work loads.

Victims of domestic violence can apply for an injunction, or non molestation order, through the courts, to protect themselves and their children from an abuser. The injunction can also be used to decide who lives in the family home and who can enter surrounding areas, and is called an occupation order. The person named in the injunction can be arrested if they break either of these orders.

Applying for an order is free. 

In order to apply for either or both of these orders, you will need to:

EMERGENCY ORDERS

If you or your child are facing an immediate threat of harm, you can ask for an emergency order. This can be done using your form FL401, by ticking the box in Section 3 (The Order/s For Which You Are Applying), which reads:

Tick this box if you wish the court to hear your application without notice being given to the respondent. The reasons relied on for an application being heard without notice must be stated in the statement in support.

This process is called a ‘without notice’ or ‘ex-parte’ application, as you don’t have to tell the person you want protection from, that you’re applying for the emergency order. Inside the form, explain why you need an emergency order. This kind of order usually lasts until you go to court for your hearing.

Once the court holds a hearing, (which you will need to attend), it may then issue an order. If an order is issued, you will then have to tell the other person involved that an order has been made.

IF YOU ARE 17 YEARS OLD AND UNDER

Anyone under the age of 16 will need to apply to the High Court for permission to apply for these injunctions.

Anyone aged 16 or 17 will need a litigation friend to represent them in court. A litigation friend can be a parent, family member, or personal friend.

Once you’ve sent in your form/s, you will need to arrange for the person you’ve brought the injunction against to be notified about your application. You can do this by sending a copy of your application and witness statement to the person named inside the application. Delivering a legal document in this way is called ‘service’, and as a process it involves making sure the person gets a copy of the documents in person.

If you have a solicitor they will do this on your behalf, or you can ask the court to serve the documents for you.

The court will also give you a document called a ‘Notice of Proceedings’, which will include a date and time for you to come to the court to talk about your case.

If the person you have brought the injunction against chooses to challenge your application, you may need legal representation. Legal aid is offered if you have been a victim of domestic abuse or violence.

As always, if you are worried that you or your child could be in serious danger or you have already experienced abuse, please report your concerns to the police.

If you’d like more advice on how to apply for the above orders, you can contact the following charities: Refuge, Women’s Aid and the Men’s Advice Line.

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Documentary On Unjust Removal Of Children From Domestic Abuse Survivors Premieres At Film Festival

26 Tuesday Jun 2018

Posted by in child abuse, Domestic Violence, Researching Reform

≈ 8 Comments

St Albans Film Festival is showing a documentary, entitled, “What Doesn’t Kill Me”,  which explores the phenomenon of children being removed from women survivors of domestic violence, this time in the US.

The documentary will be shown on Thursday 28 June, 7pm at Maltings Theatre, St Albans Film Festival. There will then be a Q&A session with the film maker Rachel Meyrick and Women Against Rape.

Women Against Rape very kindly sent Researching Reform further details about the Premiere, which we’re adding below. You can get your ticket here (they are £8 each). 

“The film, entitled ‘What Doesn’t Kill Me’, is the first feature film of director Rachel Meyrick, who grew up in Harpenden and attended college in St Albans. It aims to shine a light on domestic abuse and the fact that many dangerous men are granted custody of children.

Rachel began filming ‘What Doesn’t Kill Me’ in Oklahoma. She was making a short film in the state when she was introduced to a local shelter for abused women, and discovered the injustices they were experiencing.

She said: “Although this is a timely film for America, where radical misogyny is being exposed even in the highest offices and institutions in the country, high profile UK charities have confirmed that this happens in this country too.

“Up to 70 per cent of abusive fathers are getting custody of their children and women are losing all access to them, meaning they can no longer protect them from these dangerous men.”

The film tells the story of women fighting back against the court system, which appears to be biased towards male privilege and wealth. It exposes how the US justice system is letting down women and children and putting children in extreme danger by leaving them with abusive fathers.

In order to get the film made, Rachel had to take on all the roles within the film’s production herself, directing, editing and producing as well as operating the camera and sound.

Lisa Longstaff, spokeswoman for Women Against Rape, said: “What Doesn’t Kill Me is a moving and compelling documentary, which parallels what mothers are facing here in the UK. Domestic violence is now the most common pretext for taking into care and even forcibly adopting the children of women who report rape or domestic violence.

“By exposing the truth about the US, this film is an encouragement to everyone fighting against similar injustice in the UK. Mothers are routinely disbelieved or blamed for causing their children ‘emotional harm’.”

The film will premiere at the Maltings Theatre at 7pm on Thursday, June 28 as part of the fifth St Albans Film Festival this summer, and Rachel will host a Q&A following the screening.”

Many thanks to Women Against Rape for sharing this item with us.

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REPORT: Family Courts Are Failing To Protect Domestic Abuse Survivors

30 Wednesday May 2018

Posted by in child welfare, Domestic Violence, Family Law, Researching Reform

≈ 5 Comments

A new report produced by Women’s Aid and Queen Mary University Of London, says that the family courts are failing to recognise and protect the rights of abuse survivors by not providing safe, and fair, hearings, as well as placing survivors’ children at risk.

Queen Mary’s website offers the following information on the report, entitled “What about my right not to be abused?” Domestic abuse, human rights and the family courts:

“The report found that nearly a quarter of survivors, 24%, reported that they had been cross-examined by their abusive ex-partner during court hearings, which breaches survivors’ human right to be free from degrading treatment.”

The finding is also at odds with previous guidance set down in Practice Direction 12J, which asks the court to intervene where an alleged victim is about to be crossed examined by an alleged, or convicted, abuser. However, the court is not required to intervene unless invited to do so by the alleged survivor.

Whilst it is currently forbidden for this kind of cross examination to take place in criminal courts, government has still not made good on its promise to draw up similar legislation to prevent this practice in the family courts, something they promised to do quickly, in December of last year.

The Queen Mary website outlines the key findings from its report, which we have added below:

No special measures for protection in court

Three in five survivors (61 per cent) reported that there were no special measures – for example, separate waiting rooms, different entry/exit times, screen or video link – in place in the court despite allegations of domestic abuse in their case.

According to the report, the lack of measures to protect survivors from abuse during the court process negatively impacts on their ability to give evidence and prevents them from effectively advocating for their children in court.

Risk to children’s wellbeing

The report also revealed a clear link between survivors’ experience of domestic abuse, including coercive control and post-separation abuse, and risks to children’s wellbeing and safety. Over two thirds of survivors (69 per cent) reported that their abusive ex-partner had also been emotionally abusive towards their child(ren), while almost two in five survivors (38 per cent) reported that their abusive ex-partner had also been physically abusive towards their child(ren).

Despite these figures, unsupervised contact with an abusive parent was most likely to be awarded in the cases outlined in the report. This reinforced findings from a recent report by Cafcass and Women’s Aid which revealed that unsupervised contact was ordered at the final hearing in almost two in five cases where there was an allegation of domestic abuse (39 per cent).

In the most extreme cases, contact decisions threatened survivors and their children’s human right to life when contact orders placed them in unsafe proximity to abusive ex-partners or confidential information about their address or location was revealed during the court process. The report argues that survivors’ lack of access to a fair hearing is putting children’s wellbeing and safety at risk.

Urgent attention needed

Professor Shazia Choudhry, Professor of Law at Queen Mary University of London, said: “When the Human Rights Act was passed in 1998 it was heralded as an opportunity to “bring rights home” in order for British citizens to argue for their human rights in British courts. What this exploratory research has demonstrated is that this has not been the case for a number of women survivors of domestic abuse in the family courts.

“This research indicates that the human rights of these survivors to their family life and to be free from discrimination are not being given sufficient effect in the domestic family courts. Moreover, there is evidence of the family courts failing in their responsibility to prevent and investigate acts of violence towards these survivors and facilitating or failing to challenge a climate of gender discrimination within the courtroom.

“The findings of this research are deeply concerning and requires urgent attention from both the judiciary and the legal profession.

The report has been released to coincide with the closing of the government’s consultation on the Domestic Abuse Bill. Quantitative and qualitative data was collected from 72 women living in England. Their experiences of family courts confirms and builds on findings from existing research in this area. ”

You can read the report in full, here. 

Further information on this topic:

WAMR

 

 

OFSTED Uses New British Values Guidance To Challenge Muslim School Promoting Violence.

11 Tuesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Researching Reform

≈ 6 Comments

Two organisations are hoping to challenge a decision in the Court Of Appeal which looks at gender segregation in education.

The intervention comes after OFSTED used a new ‘British Values’ threshold to call out a Muslim school on its policy of separating boys and girls in class. A bold move by OFSTED, which has been accused by the school’s legal counsel of singling out the school to make a point.

Southall Black Sisters and Inspire intend to intervene in support of OFSTED’s findings which have been partially rejected by the Court.

A good summary of the case can be found in a press release published by One Law For All:

“School X segregates its pupils based on their gender. From the age of 9 to 16, boys and girls of Muslim background are segregated for everything – during lessons and all breaks, activities and school trips.

The school was inspected by Ofsted which raised concerns about gender segregation and other leadership failings involving the absence of effective safeguarding procedures, and an unchallenged culture of gender stereotyping and homophobia. Offensive books promoting rape, violence and against women and misogyny were discovered in the school library. Some girls also complained anonymously that gender segregation did not prepare them for social interaction and integration into the wider society. As a result of what it found during the inspection, Ofsted judged the school to be inadequate and placed it in special measures.

The school took legal action against Ofsted accusing it of bias amongst other things, and claimed that gender segregation did not have a detrimental impact on girls. Following a High Court hearing, in November 2016, the presiding judge, Mr Justice Jay, found no evidence of bias against the school but agreed with the school that gender segregation did not amount to sex discrimination under the Equality Act 2010. He went onto say that no evidence had been presented to show that gender segregation disadvantaged the girls in the school.

Ofsted is seeking to overturn this part of the judgment but the Department of Education and the Equality and Human Rights Commission, along with SBS and Inspire are intervening in support of Ofsted.”

The press release goes on to explain why the two organisations want to intervene:

“SBS and Inspire are intervening in this case because we believe that the right to equality for women and girls of Muslim background in this instance is being seriously undermined. We are alarmed by the growing acceptance of such a practice in our universities and schools; a move that we have also previously contested. In a context where all the evidence shows that minority women are subject to growing abuse, isolation, inequality and powerlessness, the practice of gender segregation cannot be viewed as a benign development because it is informed by the Muslim fundamentalist view that women are inferior and the cause of disorder and sexual chaos in society. If unchecked, the practice will give religious fundamentalist and ultra-conservative forces in our communities more and more power to define women’s lives. It will also signal the view that regulatory bodies like Ofsted have no business in investigating issues of gender inequality in faith based schools. We say that gender segregation amounts to direct sex discrimination and violates the fundamental rights and freedoms of women and girls under international human rights law on equality and non-discrimination.

Pragna Patel of SBS said: “Fundamentalist and conservative religious norms like gender segregation are becoming normalised in minority communities at an alarming rate. Separate can never be equal in a context of rising misogyny, violence against women and patriarchal control. Regressive religious forces want to implement their fundamentalist vision of education. They want to use religion to extinguish the human rights of minority women and girls to equality and self determination. We will not allow this to happen. We will not allow them to undo the strides that we have made for greater equality and freedom. Our struggle against gender segregation mirrors the struggle against racial segregation: it is morally, politically and legally wrong and the Court of Appeal and the rest of society must recognise this.””

The decision by SBS and Inspire to look carefully at gender based discrimination in schools is important. The Court of Appeal’s judgment is particularly significant, and is a must read for anyone interested in equality and education in general. It also explains the many elements in this case, which embrace legal, religious, education and gender issues.

The impact of  a successful challenge would be enormous. It would effectively bolster the view that segregation is discriminatory and a breach under the Equalities Act 2010, even if an educational reason for the segregation is given. A judgment in favour of this line of thinking would therefore affect all faith schools, not just Muslim ones. It could also affect single sex schools too, particularly if the school is considered to be sought after, for example because of academic excellence or geographic location, but only open to one gender.

In this case, the discovery of reading materials promoting violence, rape and abuse against women was a material factor in OFSTED’s poor rating of the school. It is this material which has no doubt spurred on Southall Black Sisters and Inspire to intervene. The judgment tells us, “one of the books states that a wife is not allowed to refuse sex to her husband. Another opines that women are commanded to obey their husbands and fulfil their domestic duties. Two books made clear that a husband may in certain circumstances beat his wife, provided that this is not done “harshly”.”

At its heart, this challenge feels like a challenge against extremism, especially when you read the quotes from Inspire and SBS in the press release:

Sara Khan of Inspire said: “I am deeply concerned about the rise and accommodation of gender segregation in our schools and universities. This is due in large part to the rise of fundamentalist patriarchal movements over the last few decades which seeks to reinforce regressive gender stereotypes and restrict women’s rights in an attempt to deny women full and equal participation in public life. I have seen first hand the damaging impact of gender segregation on women and girls. As a British Muslim woman, I call on our country and our judiciary to stand on the side of equality and women’s rights, at a time when illiberals and fundamentalists seek to do away with them.

Maryam Namazie from One Law for All added: “Islamists have become adept at using rights language to impose rights restrictions. Islamist projects like the niqab or Sharia courts are deceptively promoted as “rights” and “choices” when in fact their aim is to control and restrict women and girls. Girls in Islamic schools are segregated not in order to enable them to flourish but because they are seen to be the source of fitnah and male arousal from puberty onwards. Which is why they must be veiled, segregated, and prevented from many activities that are essential to child development. The court would do well to remember that when it comes to children in particular, there is a duty of care to ensure that the girl child has access to a level playing field and is able to flourish – sometimes despite the wishes of parents and fundamentalists.”

These women want to tackle terror at the root – through education, in our schooling system, which is allowing the kind of thinking we see filtered through the lenses of war and suicide bombs. They also want to provide every child with the opportunities they deserve. We respect and admire these women hugely for that.

Very many thanks to Nazenin Ansari for sharing the campaign with us.

SBS