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Prime minister will apologize to institutional sex abuse victims

Family Court “Infinitely Worse”: “Small Army of Kids…Helpless to Escape”

“[E]ven while [Prime Minister Morrison apologizes], there is a small army of children who…are living with someone of whom they are terrified...[T]here are systemic failures [in Family Court] that break the chain of protection around each child, leaving them not only vulnerable to sexual abuse but also helpless to escape it.”
- Amanda Gearing, journalist and broadcaster

On Monday, October 22, 2018, six years after parliament decided to hold a Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Australia’s new prime minister, Scott Morrison, is going to make an apology to the many victims.

However, even while he is speaking, there is a small army of children who even today are living with someone of whom they are terrified.

Ten years ago, a child of seven left a phone message on my answering machine, delivering a plea so heart-breakingly desperate that it still resonates in my ears.

The girl, 7, was terrified to go to visit her father.

Sobbing uncontrollably, she told me she was too scared to tell her father she did not want to go to his house. This child – like so many others – can’t be named or identified because her father filed a Family Court action, effectively silencing her.

… Having heard dozens of Family Law stories over the years, there are systemic failures that break the chain of protection around each child, leaving them not only vulnerable to sexual abuse but also helpless to escape it.

After years of reporting on the scourge of child sexual abuse in the churches and other institutions, I found it was difficult to imagine something worse than the betrayal of the innocence of a child by an adult who claimed to personify the love of God.

Yet what I was seeing was infinitely worse.

These children could not escape even if they had a protective parent.

In the case of church or institutional abuse, if the victim did report to a parent, the parent could protect the child.
In the case of abuse in the family, if the victim reports to a parent, and the couple has a Family Court case on foot, the child is most likely to end up being ordered to visit or live with the person they say is abusing them.

In 21st century Australia, this to which our children are being subjected is a national disgrace.

… The protective parents – mostly, but not exclusively, women – who have been subjected to years of being gaslighted, bashed or raped cannot hand their child to someone they know is capable of violence and sexual abuse.

What chance will a child have to protect themselves against similar treatment?
After hearing many similar stories, I am able to assure these parents that they are not crazy – it’s the system that is crazy.

… The child’s mother in that case was ordered by the court to subject her child to fortnightly visits to a man she did not want to see and of whom she was terrified. This mother was one of the few lucky ones who won custody of her child, after spending hundreds of thousands of borrowed dollars on legal advice in a court battle.

Excerpts from:
Australia’s Family Law System: Broken
https://gumshoenews.com/…/australias-family-law-system-bro…/

TWC Note: Kudos to this journalist for pointing out that the Family Court crisis is “infinitely worse” than the institutional failures the Royal Commission is investigating, since the children are, in effect, slaves to their perpetrators and there is no way out, thanks to the failings of the system.

However, the system is not broken as the title of the article broadcasts. The Family Court system is working as intended: to keep men entitled and empowered in their family; and yes, that includes the age-old permission to sexually assault their own children.

It is important to understand the epidemic of women unable to protect their children from sexual abuse is just a continuation of the permission men have given each other for millennia. Hopefully this will motivate women to unite and demand a new system that will empower them to protect their children.

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