Relocation
Pregnant women continue to smoke & drink, study shows
Editor: The relevance of the below article to the topic of this blog, for those who may not see the connection, is to emphasise the unfortunate circumstances in this country where an enormous amount of resources are being targeted against an entire gender (men), in the name of preventing child abuse, while the most prevalent abusers of children (being single mothers, as represented by all Crime Reporting bodies in Australia), are being effectively ignored and in many cases encouraged.
If one was to take a results-based appraisal of all the forms of child abuse in this country, including abortion, paternity fraud, substance abuse during pregnancy, child abductions, child neglect, parental alienation, denial of contact with father, relocation away from father, and all other forms of abuse, then one can only conclude that there is something fundamentally wrong with Australia’s action against child abuse, which is selective at best, but at worst is simply an illusion of protection that in truth protects the vast majority of child abuse culprits by ignorance, complicity, and government support.
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Should it be illegal for pregnant women to drink or smoke?
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Loading ...Article Start: WEALTHY, older women are most likely to drink during pregnancy while poorer, young mums-to-be have the highest rates of smoking.
Despite repeated health warnings, nearly 40 per cent of pregnant women drink alcohol and 18 per cent light up, an Australian Institute of Family Studies report says.
Child Abduction Penalties to be determined by Gender: Labor says
In a further sign that the Julia Gillard led Labor government is fermenting a co-ordinated ideological attack on all matters related to fatherhood in Australia, the federal Attorney General, Robert McClelland, today supported softer measures against parents who abduct children illegally out of Australia, despite the serious nature of such crimes, and the damage that such acts invariably have on the children concerned, because “the majority of abductors are mothers.”
Shadowing this inquiry into penalties against International Child Abductions, the Labor/Greens controlled Senate is soon expected to pass what is widely considered to be the strongest ever anti-father family law amendments in this country’s history, and as a result dismantling Australia’s Shared Parenting laws, but going further by creating an effective presumption of guilt (of child abuse) against all separated fathers.
The Gillard government is now taking its entrenched gender ideologies a step further, by arguing that since the vast majority of international child abductions are perpetrated by females, that their gender should be the driving force behind softer penalties. Many critics have labelled this argument a perversion of the principles of the best interests if the child, and quite out of step with the majority of other western nations.
Parental child abduction should not be treated as a general criminal offence despite the demands of a “vocal lobby” for tough new sanctions when children are kidnapped by parents who then flee overseas, says Community Services, the NSW government agency responsible.
While some groups have demanded jail and fines, the department says imposing new criminal sanctions could force abducting parents “to take more extreme actions to remain undetected”, hindering the return of children.
In a submission to a Senate inquiry into child abductions to and from Australia, community services says it is now mostly mothers who abduct the children — a dramatic turnaround from 30 years ago when the Hague Convention for bringing children home was signed and the abductors were fathers.
“Incarcerating the person who has primary care of a child will never be in that child’s best interest and has the potential to destroy the future relationship between the child and the parent who requested their return,” the submission says. “Parental child abduction is a matter for the family law system and should not attract criminal sanctions.”
The agency has also warned that Australia needs to make a bigger commitment to prevent children from being wrongly taken out of the country, including by requiring adults travelling to and from Australia to provide evidence of a court order or consent to allow them to leave the country with their child. “Alerts should be placed in strategic points around the airport,” the submission says.
Compounding the problem, some countries from which Australia accepts migrants — including China, Vietnam, The Philippines and Lebanon — have not signed the Hague Convention.
While Lebanon and Egypt have both signed bi-lateral agreements with Australia, the best these offer are “tools of dialogue” but no legal remedies.
Groups such as the Family Law Reform Commission have called for Australia to impose tougher sanctions against international child abduction.
Under the Family Law Act, international parental child abduction carries a maximum three-year jail sentence.
But these offences apply where residence, contact or specific issues orders in relation to a child are in force or are pending before the family courts.
Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland recently referred Australia’s international child abduction laws to the Family Law Council to see if they were adequate.
That review found one gap in the law. If a child is taken overseas by one parent with the consent of the other parent but fails to return despite a court order, there is no penalty. “That is certainly an issue that we are looking at,” Mr McClelland said.
But he agreed with community services that a general criminal offence for international child abduction was likely to be counter-productive.
“The advice of the Family Law Council also raised the point that introducing a specific crime in the Criminal Code in respect to child abduction could actually make securing returns more difficult,” he said.
“In other words, driving the party who has taken the child or abducted the child further underground and making conciliation and resolution of the matters more difficult.”
Mr McClelland said the Hague Convention — to which Australia is a signatory — provides the best available mechanism to lawfully seek the return of wrongfully removed or retained children.
Just use Skype: Judge’s order to UK father after he lets ex move their kids to Australia
A MOTHER has been allowed to bring her children to Australia to live after a British judge told her former partner he could keep in touch with his children via Skype.
The man’s plea to keep the two youngsters in England was rejected by UK Family Division court president Sir Nicholas Wall.
He said the decision was in the “best interests of the children” – although the father’s objections “came from the heart”.
Sir Nicholas sympathised with the difficulties of keeping in touch with the youngsters on the other side of the world but said the man could use instant communications such as Skype.
The judge said he “did not minimise the father’s objections” but added modern ways of keeping in touch meant the children’s move would not destroy their relationship.
It is not known if the man, who lives in Devon in the south of England, has access to the technology. The hearing at the Appeal Court in London followed a ruling last year which had banned the mother from moving to Australia.
At the time the father successfully argued the pre-teen children’s departure would destroy his “embryonic relationship” with them.
At that earlier hearing, Judge David Tyzack QC had agreed the children were at a critical stage in their links with their father.
He said the bond between the youngsters and the paternal side of their family would be severely damaged if they emigrated. Any departure would be a “grave loss”.
But that decision was overturned, with Sir Nicholas saying it was “plainly wrong”.
Sitting with Lord Justice Lloyd and Lord Justice Elias, he said he was confident neither the English nor the Australian courts would “sit idly by and allow the relationship to wither”.
Lord Justice Lloyd said the mother planned for the children to return to the UK for one month each year to stay with their father.
In the meantime, “contact by Skype, post and otherwise would be arranged,” he said.
The court had heard the parents, who cannot be named for legal reasons, never married and had “grown a long way apart” since splitting up.
“I have reached the clear conclusion that the best interests of the children require the mother’s application to relocate with them to Australia to succeed,” Sir Nicholas said.
He said the decision was in the “best interests of the children” – although the father’s objections “came from the heart”.
Sir Nicholas sympathised with the difficulties of keeping in touch with the youngsters on the other side of the world but said the man could use instant communications such as Skype.
The judge said he “did not minimise the father’s objections” but added modern ways of keeping in touch meant the children’s move would not destroy their relationship.
It is not known if the man, who lives in Devon in the south of England, has access to the technology. The hearing at the Appeal Court in London followed a ruling last year which had banned the mother from moving to Australia.
