Child sex abuse cases in the Family Court of Australia
- Details
- Category: Family Courts protecting Paedophiles
- Created: Wednesday, 13 April 2016 21:45
- Written by An extract taken from the book "Child Protection" written by Professor Freda Briggs. AO
For her PhD, Dr Wendy Foote (2006) researched into what happens when mothers report child sexual abuse to Family Courts. She found that normal maternal anxiety is pathologised and mothers, not fathers, are labelled as mentally ill. Ironically, mothers who are mentally ill do not automatically lose residence of their chidren outside the Family Court.
In only 6% of litigated cases, accused fathers were banned from spending time with their children. In 38% of these cases, the ban related to child abuse/family violence and only 2% of these fathers were labelled as mentally ill. The notion that mothers concoct allegations of child sexual abuse has persisted despite (a) Australian and International research showing that children`s evidence is reliable and (b) research conducted with the cooperation of the Australian Family Court showed that false allegations are rare and, when they occur, the mothers usually had good reason to suspect that their children were being abused or were at high risk.