A year old article, but the image caught my attention.
The Center Quilt:
"Hand Prints" by my own daughter, when she was two.
The only thing I have left of her.
She was handed over to the 'abuser' who has through the use of the courts- forced my daughter to grow up with out her mother and with a known, admitted and convicted 'batterer' - HAL RICHARDSON, TOPEKA, KANSAS.
Research shows that 'batterers' are 70% more likely to abuse their children than non batterers. FATHERS RIGHTS, to punish, torture and kill.
(WOMENSENEWS)--On Mother's Day, busloads of battered moms and advocates for abused children will roll into Washington, D.C.
They'll hold a vigil outside the White House in an effort to persuade President Obama to take up their cause of reforming a family court system that they say all too often puts children into the hands of abusive parents.
For some it marks a new and somewhat frightening degree of public exposure. Some of the protesters will be shrouded in scarves, hiding from their abusers or a court system they fear will punish them for speaking out.
"They're whistleblowers," said vigil organizer Connie Valentine, policy director for The California Protective Custody Association, based in Sacramento. "The system doesn't look kindly on whistleblowers. It's a difficult situation because we have seen enormous judicial retaliation against mothers who step up in front of the problem."
Efforts to quantify the problem are just beginning but protective parents claim it is widespread. A study done by the Williamsburg, Va.-based American Judges Foundation in the early 1990s showed that in 70 percent of challenged cases, battering parents involved in custody battles persuaded authorities the victimized parent was unfit for sole custody, according to a spokesperson from the foundation.
Valentine and other advocates for protective parents call the family courts broken and corrupt and say the system not only puts children into the hands of abusive parents, it also bankrupts and punishes the protective parents who fight for them. At the same time, they say it's hard to reform the system because the people it hurts are hiding from abusers and anxious to avoid publicity.
Shifting Ground
But Valentine feels the ground shifting. "I think we're in the early stages of a civil rights movement for protecting children from physical and sexual abuse."
She said the Internet is helping battered mothers come together. "E-mail has helped. It's a good part of the reason for all of the advocacy," Valentine said. "Women are beginning to see that it's not their fault and that they are just pawns in the game."
Mo Hannah, psychology professor at Siena College, near Albany, N.Y., used the Internet to organize the first annual conference for battered women seeking custody in 2004, after her own difficult custody battle.
This past January marked the seventh gathering, which meets annually in Albany and is the major organizing and networking event of the year for protective parents.
"The first conference was about getting people to talk and validate their experiences," Hannah said. "But as the conferences continued it became very clear that we needed a national movement. Now the conference is just sort of an umbrella or structure that encourages people to share with each other."
Over the seven years, women have met at the conference and formed smaller groups, such as the Massachusetts Protective Mothers for Custodial Justice.
"Mass Moms," as it has come to be known, brings together women who have gone through custody battles with those currently in the throes. Volunteers accompany women to court and on lawyer visits and play a general shepherding role.
"We stand next to a woman who is fighting for her children while she pleads and receives orders," one Mass Mom told Women's eNews at January's Battered Mothers Custody Conference.
These volunteers have all been through their own custody battles and declined to be named for fear of retribution from their ex-husbands or the court system. Many have gag orders associated with their own cases. It is this type of fear of retribution that has helped keep the protective parents movement under the radar.
