Stats

One in four women experience domestic violenceat least once in their lifetime.

23% of These include children.

Only 5-10% of child abuse allegations have been found false.

One out of two perpetrators have been known to abuse their children.

Facts:

Witnessing domestic violence impacts heavily on the psychological, emotional and Social wellbeing of children.

Children are at risk too after separation.

Children do get hurt in domestic violent relationships

Children rarely lie about abuse.

Fathers rights are prioritised over the safety and well being of the children.

Domestic Violence Hurts Kids too...

Only in the last decade was it acknowledged that witnessing domestic violence has a a lasting affect on children.  There are families with generations of abusive histories where children grow up to form domestic violent relationships.  Now almost common knowledge and included in many laws as a form of abuse, the continuation of violence still prevails.  The biggest legal loophole lies in our family court system. 

The Loophole that abuses them again

Family Court was intended with the utmost integrity to fairly decide the home and lives of the children. 

The Family Law Reform...

Unfortunately, this did not prevent perpetrators getting full unfettered access to their children.  In 2005, the system just got worst after an agressive campaign from fathers lobby groups.  They maintained that they were denied access to their children due to domestic violence.  Statistics and research were created and compiled by lobbyests that distorted the last twenty years of work on domestic violence and child abuse.  Advocates who stood against their campaign were discredited and often harrassed by members.  Under what seemed to be a worthy cause with the name, "Shared Parenting" had an underlying agenda -" Free to Abuse". 

Parental Alienation Syndrome...

Even the childrens stories are disbelieved due to the backing of a racket called "Parental Alienation Syndrome" developed by a psychologist called Richard Gardner.  Richard Gardner claims that nearly all cases, the mother coerces the child into making false abuse allegations.  He also claims that to stop a father from having sex with a child she should carry a sex toy in her handbag.  There have been claims from other sources that Richard Gardner is a peodaphile himself and reached this theory to promote peodaphilic behaviour.  It is banned in US courts after an influx of abusers using it as a court card.  Another common court card is "malicious mother syndrome" describing the mother who raises abuse as a vindictive vengeful liar.  In a large study of american cases, 2% of childrens abuse allegations were found to be false.  In Australia, in small studies between 5 and 10%. 

Punishing victims...

Here in Australia, it is a living reality and now under the current regime mothers face the following if they try to protect their children:

1. If they speak about it in court without a high amount of evidence they may be required to pay the abusers legal costs.
2. If they raise allegations of sexual abuse, the children will be sent to the perpetrator and the mother will be only able to see the children in the context of supervised access.
3. If they speak out to the media, they face twelve months jail.
4. If they do not deliver the children to the visit more than three occasions, they may face up to two years in Jail. 
5. If they try to run with the children they are hunted down like criminals.
6. Evidence of domestic violence is often toned down and trivialised as "situational" if there is not enough evidence of more than three occasions. 

Child protection...

Recently it has become common knowledge that child protection is underesourced to properly investigate child abuse.  Skilled at documenting and maintaining their accountability and at times to the expense of the notifiers credability.  The intent of protecting children has been lost in their paperwork to the detriment of children and family members who want to protect them.

The link between domestic violence and child abuse...

In recent studies, it was found that perpetrators were likely to abuse their children and particularly post separation.  Recently a father had fractured the sculls of twin four month old babies three weeks after separation on a contact visit.  Also prevalent in the news were numerous parental homicides and little mention of custody arrangements and accountability of the family courts decsions.  There have been no Child Death inquiries into the Australian Family Court Decisions to date.