Archive for April, 2011
Driving dads into despair – fears family law change will hurt kids
Editor Comment: I’d like to commend Warwick Marsh for finally getting another perspective on these proposed family law changes out via the media, as per the below article.
Perjury to be legalized in Family CourtÂ
It is a hard to get any media outlet to publish anything these days that is not consistent with the feminist mandated view that separated men are all violent, women are all pre-disposed victims, and children should ‘naturally’ reside with their mothers after separation.
These are of course out-dated concepts that have no place in a progressive society, but are notions that are ironically championed by modern feminist groups, who have apparently concluded that equality may not be such a good idea after all.
With regard to these changes and contrary to what this article seems to suggest, the government’s own review of this legislation (the AIFS review), which interviewed over 27,000 parents, found NO need for any legislative change, and more importantly NO risk of abuse or violence to women or children as a result of the 2006 amendments. This fact seems to be conveniently ignored the Attorney General Robert McLelland, which may explain why he asked Richard Chishom, the ex Juge and ex Family law lawyer who became a millionaire on the back  of divorced parents, to write a new report.
The Attorney-General was well aware that Chisholm had previously gone on the record and co-authored opinions against the concept of shared parenting.  Obviously the Attorney General was unhappy with the conclusions of the independent review, and wanted a sure thing this time.
As certain as day follows night, this report was expected to condemn shared parenting, showing Attorney-General Robert McLelland at his unethical best.
All in all, one needs to remember what these family law changes really mean in basic terms. By looking at the 4 pillars of the new family law changes, one is immediately drawn by the obvious question “who are these changes really attempting to serve?”.
I do not think the answer is “children”.
The proposed major changes to the Family Law act
(1) False allegations of Child Abuse: False allegations of abuse, specifically domestic violence and child abuse, are to have no legal repercussions. Lying in Court, even if it results in disastrous emotional turmoil for the child or the other parent, and even if it resulted in hundreds of hours of wasted investigation by child protection officers, will not be punishable, not even incurring a bill for wasted use of services, and not even a small symbolic fine. Given human nature as it is, if it is not punishable, then more parents will LIE in Court.
(2) Even a Sneeze can be considered Domestic Violence: The definition of Domestic Violence is to be radically watered down, where almost any conceivable behaviour, even a sneeze, could be considered domestic violence.
(3) Parental Alienation is to be legalised and rewarded: The friendly parent provision to be removed, effectively endorsing and rewarding parents who brain-wash their children into hating the other parent.
(4) Presumption of Guilt against Fathers: The lowering of the standard of proof, effectivey embedding a presumption of guilt against most fathers, a presumption that would often be impossible to disprove categorically given the nature and time constraints of most of these cases.
Related Article:
Top 10 myths about Shared Parenting (Child Custody laws) in Australia
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CHANGES to the Family Law Act will lead to a rise in the number of children at risk of being killed or injured by their parents, fathers groups claimed yesterday.
Opponents of the proposed amendments argue that, since legislation promoting shared parenting was introduced in 2006, the rate of child homicides by parents in NSW has more than halved.
NSW Child Death Team annual reports show that, in 2005, 10 children were killed by parents or carers and that by 2009 that figure had dropped to four.
While the amendment, currently before a Senate inquiry, retains the emphasis on shared parenting from 2006, it removes the ability of courts to penalise parents for making claims of domestic violence against their ex-partner which later prove to be false.
Warwick Marsh, from the Fatherhood Foundation, fears that the changes will undermine the relationship between separated fathers and their children and risk reversing this downward trend.
“The reality is this amendment is a winding back of the shared parenting legislation under the guise of protecting children from violence when the child homicide figures actually show that the reverse is true,” Mr Marsh said.
“Since the shared parenting changes in 2006 children have been at less risk of violence than ever before.”
The Federal Government introduced the 2011 amendments after three inquiries found the Act did not provide enough protection to victims of domestic violence.
The amendments were also in response to concerns raised by women’s groups, academics, the Family Law Council and the Australian Institute of Family Studies.
Mr Marsh claims the changes would lead to vexatious claims being made against innocent fathers by bitter ex-partners trying to sabotage their relationship with their children, despite the court’s emphasis on shared parenting.
This point of view is supported by several fathers groups who have made submissions.
Domestic violence support groups back the changes, saying women and children who escape abusive households need to be able to speak about domestic violence without fear of punishment.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland said the Bill had the support of the wider community, with the majority of submissions lodged supporting the changes.
Letitia Rowlands
Questionable tactics backfire on CSA as many Parents flee overseas
PARENTS owing millions in child support are fleeing overseas, with the Federal Government winding back a controversial plan to stall them at the airport.
There are 22,529 parents living overseas owing $142.2 million collectively in child support, with most in the UK, New Zealand and the US.
It is a sharp rise since 2008, when 14,000 parents were dodging $97 million by living overseas.
The Courier-Mail has learned that the Government has clamped down on the use of controversial Department Prohibition Orders.
The orders were previously slapped on non-paying parents and those who tried to fly out of the country were held by Customs and Border Protection.
But while 1351 of the orders were issued in two years to July 2009, in the past financial year only 183 departure prohibition rulings were made.
The windback comes after Centrelink was accused of flippant use of them in a 2009 Ombudsman’s report.
Child Support Agency non-compliance national manager Bill Volkers said while the DPOs have decreased, the agency has seen “more success” in encouraging the customers to repay their debts.
Kiesha Abrahams’ grim life and death
kiesha abrahams
GRIM details of little Kiesha Abrahams’ life in the care of her mother and stepfather have emerged following the discovery of her remains in bushland.
Detectives are expected to include in their brief of evidence witness statements alleging that Kiesha was the subject of harsh, brutal discipline and was sometimes “flogged”.
At other times, she was allegedly forced to put her hands on her head and stand in the corner of a room for hours.
Police records show the Abrahams family had 36 complaints lodged with police. No charges were laid.
Family friend Kylie Marshall told The Sunday Telegraph she thought Kiesha was unhappy when she was out and about.
Ms Marshall recalled encountering the trio outside a bottle shop at Bidwill. Kiesha was holding hands with her stepfather.
When she asked her mother, Kristi Abrahams, who was pregnant at the time, why Kiesha was crying, Abrahams allegedly responded: “She’s jealous. It’s because I’m pregnant and sick. She’s gotta make herself sick as well.”
The bubbly six-year-old, who loved singing into her Hannah Montana microphone, was barely seen at school and had been in class only five times during the 2010 school year before her disappearance in July.
After a nine-month investigation, Abrahams and her partner Robert Smith were arrested on Friday morning and charged with killing Kiesha and burying her in bushland at Shalvey. They have been remanded in custody and have yet to plead.
From day one, the pair were the main suspects.
Detectives drew up detailed profiles on both their lives, studying their bank accounts, unpicking their family history and following their daily habits.
Police seized their cars and mobile phones for “forensic testing”. When they were handed back, they had been bugged with listening devices so investigators could keep tabs on their conversations.
Last week, detectives got word that Abrahams and Smith would visit the little girl’s gravesite in a macabre service to mark her seventh birthday. The arrests were made at 1am as they allegedly left the bush block at Shalvey.
Detective Superintendent Geoff Beresford, director of the State Crime Command’s Serious Crime Directorate, signed off on the arrest warrant and said it was one of the most satisfying moments of the past year.
“It’s been a long, frustrating process for nine months. It’s a sad case (and) regrettably, there are no winners,” he said.
Neighbours of Abrahams and Smith at Seven Hills said arguments between the couple had escalated in recent days.
“There was a lot of fighting where I’d see him bashing on the back of the house yelling at her,” one neighbour said.
Anger has turned to mourning for Kiesha in the Mount Druitt community. Local residents said they felt betrayed by the couple, who received endless community support.
“We have to wait and see what happens (in court), but there are so many people who put their lives on hold to help them who feel like they’ve been betrayed or lied to,” one local, Kylie, said.
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/national/kiesha-abrahams-grim-life-and-death/story-e6frfkvr-1226043929596#ixzz1KOUW023v
Gay dad granted rights of a parent: Nicholson’s (nee Maslow’s) Hierarchy of Family Rights
Editorial Note: Response to below article - This article refers to the emerging trend in surrogate adoptions, and this will clearly continue to be a thorny ethical issue in the nature of parenting, especially given the role of technology.
Gay Surrogate dads and parental rights
My concern with this article is not so much on the increasing role of non-biological gay parentage, which simply seems to be an extension of the step-parenting role.
I do however note the inconsistent legal application of the concept of “parental rights”, as evidenced in this judgment amongst others, when it comes to gay couples.
In Australia, the debate about Gay Adoption and Surrogacy has consistently focussed on the rights of gays, whereas typical Family Court matters apparently focus only on the best interests of the child.
It seems that where Human Rights on Parenting Matters are concerned, the Australian Courts have taken a decidedly hierarchical approach, quite possibly in unison with the trajectory originally determined by the very controversial and now discredited former Chief Justice of the Australian Family Court, Alastair Nicholson.
What seems to have developed is a type of pecking order, something along the lines of “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Family Rights”, or perhaps most adequately named “Nicholson’s Hierarchy of Family Rights”.
It is clear that in this pecking order, unborn children are at the lowest possible eb, with effectively zero rights up until about 21 weeks. Biological fathers are next in line, not as far down as embryos, but close to the bottom in any event.
Children themsleves are located somewhere in the middle, with their rights being insrcibed in law only, given that most family law cases seem to be motivated by the rights of others.
Gays and Surrogate Mothers seem to be secondary on this list, with Gays edging out Surrogates in most recent cases, especially when Surrogates have no biological connection to the child they are carrying.
Top of the list are biological mothers, who seem to have an unassailable position in Family Rights, with the universally assigned and arrely challenged rights in abortion, child-custody and parental responsibility matters.
Nicholson’s Hierarchy of Family Rights
10. Embryos
9. Biological (gay and straight) Fathers
8. Step Mothers
7. Step Fathers
6. Adoptive Parents
5. Children
4 Grand Parents
3. Surrogate Mothers
2. Gay (non-biological) Parents
1. Biological Mothers
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A male GAY couple who paid a surrogate mother to carry twins has won a major case for parenting rights.
The case comes as overseas surrogacy booms, with 350 babies expected to be brought to Australia in 2011, compared to 50 babies just two years ago.
The Advertiser can reveal the parenting rights breakthrough hot on the heels of Nicole Kidman’s shock new surrogate baby revelation and the success of TV hit comedy Modern Family, which features a gay male couple with a baby girl.
The 20-month-old girls were born in Mumbai to an Indian woman who carried eggs from an anonymous donor impregnated with sperm from one of the Melbourne men.
The couple went to the Family Court seeking full parental status for the non-genetic male partner.
“In this case, the children do not have the benefit of a mother, but they have the good fortune of having two fathers,” Justice Paul Cronin found.
“As a matter of law, the word ‘parent’ tends to suggest some biological connection, but … biology does not really matter; it is all about parental responsibility.”
Lawyer Susan Buchanan, who represented the Melbourne men at the Family Court, said the ruling was important.
“Obviously, it’s a decision of public interest,” she said. “In the special circumstances of the case, it was the other parent who had no genetic link to the child, had no status in relation to the child – it … attributes to him full parental rights.”
Ms Buchanan said the decision could pave the way for other same-sex couples to win full parenting rights.
The decision was welcomed by surrogacy advocates.
“It’s a major step forward having that kind of judgment because it sets a precedent,” said Sam Everingham, of Australian Families Through Gestational Surrogacy.
“Any judge would have seen that this is a modern family made in a fairly unconventional way.”
But Catholic ethicist Nicholas Tonti-Filippini said surrogacy should be discouraged because a “committee of parents” – surrogate, donors and commissioning parents – confused children’s sense of identity.
The Family Court made “parenting orders” in three international surrogacy cases last year for two couples and one single man returning to Australia seeking citizenship for the newborns.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/gay-dad-granted-rights-of-a-parent/story-e6frea6u-1225992631847
Listen to kids, says retired magistrate
F4E Editor comment:  The fact remains (although hardly ever reported) that not one single child in a Court mandated Shared Parenting arrangement in Australia has ever been found to have been abused, whereas over 80% of all familial child abuse occur in single-mother, sole-custody house-holds.
Yet the media still rely on the bizarre insights of the likes of Barbara Holborow, who by her own admission has never read the family law act, has never read a family law judgment on this matter, and has relied solely on one biased newspaper article to formulate her view on Australia’s Shared Parenting legislation.
How exactly is there to be an informed debate on Shared Parenting in this country when the media rely almost exclusively on the views of un-informed media-tarts who have never even bothered to read the legislation that they they are so zealously criticizing?
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Barbara Holborow- has never read the Family Law act.
VULNERABLE children stuck in court custody battles are put at greater risk because judges and magistrates are out of touch with kids, a former Children’s Court magistrate says.
Barbara Holborow said Family Court judges and federal magistrates should go back to school to learn how to talk to, and deal with, children.
She told the Herald Sun that children were not adequately being heard in court and some were subsequently left with abusive parents.
One horrific example Ms Holborow highlighted was a case where a judge allowed a young girl to stay with her abusive father – as long as locks were on the child’s door.
Ms Holborow made a submission to a federal inquiry into controversial family law changes aimed at boosting children’s safety in parenting matters.
The proposed changes would see family law courts focus more on protecting children than on benefits of children seeing both parents, if family violence is suspected.
The push has caused a stir with shared parenting groups that say changes will lead to unproven accusations of domestic violence used to gain custody.
But advocates argue children have been forced to see violent parents or parents jailed for sex offences.
Ms Holborow, who received an Order of Australia medal for her work with children and in court, said in her submission that “most of the federal magistrates and Family Court judges were not truly experienced in considering what is in the best interest of a child”.
Special classes to train judges in how to deal with children was one option the retired magistrate floated to the Herald Sun.
“They could have experts explain to them how to approach children,” she said.
One-on-one meetings with a child inside cham- bers was another option, she said.
“It could be that the magistrate or the judge might say, ‘I want to have a chat with Freddy in chambers’,” Ms Holborow said.
Law Institute of Victoria president Caroline Counsel said judicial colleges needed more money to ensure training provision.
“There is always a need for ongoing education in the legal fraternity, but particularly for those who sit in judgment,” Ms Counsel said.
Submissions to the inquiry close April 29.
Perverted Child Custody & Child Support laws reach NEW LOW
UK: A couple who lost custody of their baby daughter to her surrogate mother have been ordered to hand over more than $1000 a month maintenance for the child.
Today they spoke of their disgust that they would be forced to pay for someone else to raise the child they will never see.
The father, a leading chef, said the decision by the Child Support Agency ‘added insult to injury’ and that he would appeal against it.
He and his wife, who had suffered six late-stage miscarriages including four sets of twins, used a surrogacy website to find a single mother of two on benefits who was willing to carry the baby they longed for.
They made an informal agreement to pay her $20,000 in expenses.
But halfway through the pregnancy she decided she wanted to keep the baby and a judge ordered that the woman, who was also the biological mother, could keep the child despite her earlier promise.
The couple, referred to as Mr and Mrs W to protect the child’s identity, later relinquished their contact rights because they said it would be too difficult emotionally and that it was unfair for the baby to be split between two homes.
They allowed the surrogate, known as Miss N, to keep the $9000 they had already given to her.
But now Mr W must also pay over $1000 in child support every month as the biological father of the eight-month-old girl.
‘She cannot say, “I am keeping your child and now you must pay for itâ€Â,’ he said.
‘She has taken away our baby and now she is taking our money. To me, that is completely wrong. The CSA has made the decision as if we were a couple who had broken up, but our situation is unique.
‘We were not having a baby together, we had agreed for her to carry a child for myself and my wife.
‘I have written to Downing Street and my MP to call for a change in the law.’
Mr W said he now suspected it may have been Miss N’s plan all along to have a child with a wealthy man from whom she could claim child support over the next 18 years.
‘We should have seen the signs when she started asking for more than we had agreed. I don’t think this was ever about her suddenly wanting to keep the baby, I think this was about getting an income.’
The chef said he would feel more comfortable paying for vouchers which could be redeemed on food and clothing than money which would not necessarily go towards the child.
‘If I need to pay $1000 a month because otherwise the child will be living in poverty then that is another reason why the baby should be with us. We would have given her all the things she needed.’
Mrs W, who is in her late 30s, had cancer of the womb in her 20s and complications from surgery meant it was difficult for her to carry a baby to full term.
After she and her husband contacted her via a website, Miss N agreed to be inseminated with Mr W’s sperm, meaning they were both the baby’s biological parents.
But the relationship between the two parties turned sour after Miss N apparently began asking for more money.
Three months before the baby was due, she sent a text message to the couple to say she was keeping the child.
In July last year she gave birth to baby T and a bitter six-month custody battle ensued.
Miss N accused Mr W of being violent towards his wife, which the couple denied. They accused Miss N of neglecting her sons and of living in a filthy home.
In January, in a rare case, Miss N was awarded custody after a judge deemed it was in the child’s best interests because there was a ‘clear attachment’ between the mother and daughter.
At the time, Mr Justice Baker warned that the risks of entering into a surrogacy agreement were ‘very considerable’.
Surrogacy agreements are not legally binding in court, even with a formal written contract.
It is illegal to profit from surrogacy but ‘reasonable expenses’ are permitted.
Another woman walks free after killing her husband
AN Adelaide woman who snapped and killed her cheating husband by setting him on fire has walked from court with only a suspended sentence.
Rajini Narayan, 46, was found guilty of the manslaughter of 47-year-old Satish Narayan after being tried for his murder.
In the Supreme Court of South Australia today, Justice John Sulan sentenced her to six years in jail with a non-parole period of four years for the death of her husband in December 2008.
He suspended her sentence saying there was good reason to do so and that her husband’s conduct was a mitigating factor.
Mrs Narayan had told her trial she snapped, threw petrol and a lit candle onto her husband’s back after learning via his emails that he was having an affair.
She had intended just to burn the tip of his penis with a candle and a beaker of petrol to save their marriage.
But she snapped and threw the beaker and candle on him after he turned his back on her.
Fathers rights groups have condemned this judgment as yet another example of the double-standards in our laws, where women serve little if any jail time despite murdering their husbands or children in the most gruesome of circumstances.
Ash Patil, President of Fathers4Equality, says that women always tend to rely on stereotypes to get away with murder. “They always pull out the..he abused me argument, or I was depressed argument.”
Patil notes that these arguments are never accepted for men in this country, and they should never be accepted as defence for murder, regardless of whether the murderer is male or female.”
Patil slams this murder as a revenge murder, from a jealous wife who sought to hurt the man that was leaving her.
“We recently saw a man, Arthur Freeman, be put to jail effectively for life for murdering his daughter, Darcy Freeman, exacting revenge on his estranged wife. The question is however, why was this woman not treated the same?”
Dying Shrill of the Femi-garchs – same old tired arguments against Shared Parenting
F4E Editorial Comment Re: The below article from Alabama, USA: The same old tired arguments against a child’s rights to a meaningful relationship with two parents, from the same old self-centred feminist advocates from across the globe.
Just read between the lines of this article and you come to the same conclusion. This writer believes that children’s rights should not take priority over the rights of women.
These perceived rights go hand in hand with the historical and out-dated community standard that has given complete and uncontested ownership of children to the mother. This sense of ownership is firmly rooted in many mother’s expectations, even before birth, with women (and only women) given the unique right in our society to legally kill an unborn child, without considering either the natural rights of the child, nor that of the father.
However in an era when women are tearing down every pre-conceived notion of femininity, even against that last bastion of masculinity, the military, shouldn’t we finally reject this pretence of moral outrage against shared parenting, and call it for what it is?
Nothing more than the dying shrill of the femi-garchs, a small, out-dated, non-representative self-interest group who are fighting the masses in order to hold on to their ill-gotten power.
Advertiser editorial: Custody bill bad for kids
Establishing custody following a divorce is too often contentious and almost always heart-rending. And noncustodial parents sometimes can make a case that their rights are shunted aside by the courts in such situations.
But don’t worry, the Alabama Legislature — that fount of wisdom regarding the rearing of children — is riding to the rescue. And yes, we’re being sarcastic.
Separate bills in the Senate and House would change dramatically the rules regarding child custody, shifting the decisions by family courts away from judges who are supposed to put the child’s best interests foremost and requiring instead in many cases more equal sharing of parental rights.
Except in cases where one parent was declared unfit by the court, the proposed law would require divorcing parents to create a parenting plan. If they could not agree, judges would have to order shared parenting arrangements.
Here’s where the bills get weird. In cases of disagreements, parents would alternate years when they would control major decisions. Fathers would decide the big issues in even-numbered years and mothers in odd-numbered years.
Before any legislator votes for this legislation, we suggest they reread (or read) 1 Kings in the Old Testament, specifically the story of the Judgment of Solomon. It’s difficult to read these bills without the story of splitting the baby in half coming to mind.
Under this rule, it’s easy to see situations where a child will be jerked from one home to another, one school to another, and perhaps one city to another, every other year. Children need two parents; there’s no denying that. But they also need stability. They do not need the rules to be changed every other year.
There probably are reforms that need to be made to custody law in Alabama, but these bills go too far in trying to protect parental rights when the real emphasis should be on protecting the rights of children.
We suggest that these bills be killed, and instead a study commission made up of family court judges and child welfare experts look at possible changes to the law to minimize inequities in parental rights and to promote both divorcing parents remaining active in a child’s life.
But the emphasis of any changes should remain on what is best for the child, not the parents.
http://www.montgomeryadvertiser.com/article/20110411/OPINION01/104100312/Advertiser-editorial-Custody-bill-bad-kids?odyssey=mod%7Cnewswell%7Ctext%7COpinion%7Cp
Girls on the attack – trio bash former friend in alleged payback assault
IT had all the hallmarks of a gangland-style payback.
Three offenders single out a former friend for a brutal bashing after the victim allegedly belted one of their sisters in an earlier assault.
But this was not the streets of Kings Cross, it was downtown Gosford and the thugs were pretty young women aged 19 and 20.
The alleged ringleader Taylor McNally, who Gosford Local Court heard kicked her former friend five times in the head as she lay on the ground, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm and affray yesterday.
In what Magistrate Alan Railton described as a “disgusting set of facts” the court heard the 19-year-old childcare worker and two friends – Jade Radford, 19, and Hannah Napier, 20, who did not face court but were convicted on charges on assault and affray in their absence – followed their victim as she left a Gosford nightclub about 3.45am on January 3.
Radford would later tell police Ms Shannon had allegedly assaulted her sister in a prior incident.
They all joined in pulling the victim’s hair as McNally kneed her to the head five times and hit the back of her head twice. Radford punched the victim in the back of the head three times before kicking her in the face and they all stepped back.
McNally launched another attack, punching her head and grabbing hair, until they fell over.
Radford delivered four “hammerfist” blows to her face, a police statement said.
Ms Shannon was also kicked in the head and leg but was eventually able to stand up and walk away. She later attended Gosford Hospital for treatment to her injuries, which included a chipped tooth.
The whole incident was caught on CCTV.
McNally’s solicitor tried to play down the seriousness of the affray but Mr Railton sent McNally to see a probation and parole officer before ordering her to attend a forum sentencing where she will face her victim, Ms Shannon, who will have a say in how McNally will repair the harm she has caused.
Read more articles from the F4E archives on “Violent Women”.
Men Shouldn’t Be Overlooked as Victims of Partner Violence
In addressing intimate partner violence, the focus is usually on women who are physically battered by husbands or boyfriends. However, women sometimes hurt their partners as well.
Women are doing virtually everything these days that men areâ€â€working as doctors, lawyers, and rocket scientists; flying helicopters in combat; riding horses in the Kentucky Derby. And physically assaulting their spouses or partners.
In fact, when it comes to nonreciprocal violence between intimate partners, women are more often the perpetrators.
These findings on intimate partner violence come from a study conducted by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The lead investigator was Daniel Whitaker, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist and team leader at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (which is part of the CDC). Results were published in the May Journal of Public Health.
In 2001, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health attempted to amass data about the health of a nationally representative sample of 14,322 individuals between the ages of 18 and 28. The study also asked subjects to answer questions about romantic or sexual relationships in which they had engaged during the previous five years and whether those relationships had involved violence.
Of those subjects, 11,370 reported having had heterosexual relationships and also provided answers to the violence-related questions. So Whitaker and his colleagues decided to use the responses from these 11,370 subjects for a study into how much violence is experienced in intimate heterosexual partner relationships, who the instigators are, and whether physical harm accrues from the violence.
The 11,370 subjects, Whitaker and his colleagues found, reported on 18,761 relationships, of which 76 percent had been nonviolent and 24 percent violent. That almost a quarter of the subjects had engaged in violent relationships may seem high to some people, but “the rates we found are similar to those of other studies of late adolescents and young adults, a time period when interpersonal-violence rates are at their highest,†Whitaker told Psychiatric News. Also, he added, “these rates demonstrate the magnitude of interpersonal violence as a health and social problem.â€Â
Furthermore, Whitaker discovered, of the 24 percent of relationships that had been violent, half had been reciprocal and half had not. Although more men than women (53 percent versus 49 percent) had experienced nonreciprocal violent relationships, more women than men (52 percent versus 47 percent) had taken part in ones involving reciprocal violence.
Regarding perpetration of violence, more women than men (25 percent versus 11 percent) were responsible. In fact, 71 percent of the instigators in nonreciprocal partner violence were women. This finding surprised Whitaker and his colleagues, they admitted in their study report.
As for physical injury due to intimate partner violence, it was more likely to occur when the violence was reciprocal than nonreciprocal. And while injury was more likely when violence was perpetrated by men, in relationships with reciprocal violence it was the men who were injured more often (25 percent of the time) than were women (20 percent of the time). “This is important as violence perpetrated by women is often seen as not serious,†Whitaker and his group stressed.
Of the study’s numerous findings, Whitaker said, “I think the most important is that a great deal of interpersonal violence is reciprocally perpetrated and that when it is reciprocally perpetrated, it is much more likely to result in injury than when perpetrated by only one partner.â€Â
The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, upon which this investigation was based, was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development with co-funding from 17 other federal agencies.
by Joan Arehart-Treichel
http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/content/42/15/31.2.full
