 Judge Forbids Kids’ Testimony; Excludes Evidence; Seals Record
“All my client is asking for is a fair trial based on facts.” Attorney for Angelina “Judge Ouderkirk denied Ms. Jolie a fair trial, improperly excluding her evidence relevant to the children’s health, safety, and welfare, evidence critical to making her case.” From Angelina’s appeal, filed on Monday Judge John Ouderkirk has removed primary custody from Angelina Jolie after sabotaging her case. The only thing remarkable about this is that it took 5 years for a Family Court judge to give a father what he wanted. CHILDREN'S TESTIMONY Judge Ouderkirk forbade all of Angelina’s six children from testifying, despite California law permitting them to testify. The children apparently wanted to give their reasons directly to the judge for wanting to continue living primarily with their mother. Ouderkirk obviously didn’t want to hear anything that would make it harder to order equal parenting. NEW EVIDENCE OF DV Angelina reportedly filed a declaration in March that included proof of domestic violence not yet before the court. Ouderkirk appears to have disregarded that evidence. APPEAL Angelina filed an appeal on Monday, accused Ouderkirk of wrongly excluding evidence, as well as requesting his removal based on the judge having business interests with opposing counsel. Even if Angelina wins her appeal, her case will likely be remanded back to the same judge, or another one, who will find another way to justify giving the father equal custody, or even sole custody, saying she is interfering with the father’s parenting. EQUAL PARENTING Fathers’ rights activists push for equal parenting laws and policy saying that is what’s fair for fathers. However, societal consensus and legal doctrine support that the best interests of children should prevail, not what parents think is fair for themselves. Research and experience support that it is in children’s best interest is to live primarily with their primary attachment figure after divorce, especially when parents don’t get along and children say that is what they want. COVER UP Of course, Ouderkirk sealed the record so we the public cannot see what kind of DV has been reported and by whom, and hence know how unfair his ruling may be. This sealing of records, along with exclusion of evidence that doesn’t support the father’s position, are common tactics used by Family Court judges to facilitate switching custody. This is tantamount to a cover up. MORAL OF THE STORY The moral of this story is that even a mother as famous and wealthy as Angelina Jolie can be sabotaged in Family Court and, like all women, does not have the power to maintain primary custody or protect her children after divorce. 3 WORDS: Systemic Male Entitlement JOIN The Women’s Coalition where we are fighting for a new system. https://www.WomensCoalitionInternational.org/ ACTIVISM: tell everyone you know why you side with Angelina to help change the narrative about forced equal parenting. And share this post on Facebook and Twitter! MSM: Angelina Jolie Reportedly Feels Failed by the Court After Her Children Didn’t Get to Testify in Ongoing Divorce Case With Brad Pitt https://www.vanityfair.com/.../angelina-jolie-failed-by... Angelina Jolie Loses Bid to Remove Judge Overseeing Her Divorce From Brad Pitt https://www.vanityfair.com/.../angelina-jolie-brad-pitt... MORE INFO: The Custody Crisis: Why It's Happening & How We Can End It https://fb.watch/55BCBfcElI/ DONATE: If you appreciate the work of TWC, please consider donating! Paypal: http://bit.ly/DonateWomensCoalition Facebook Donate button Facebook Fundraiser Amazon Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/
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 The Custody Crisis Is NOT Gender Neutral; Judges Are NOT Mistaken; The Solution Is NOT Training or New Laws
In a new two-part NBC News series, the Custody Crisis is being portrayed as gender neutral, caused by untrained judges making mistakes and a lack of child safety legislation. This damaging misinformation misleads the public and points to ineffective solutions which will only prolong the crisis. The investigative series discusses how “parents” are unable to protect children from “abusers” in Family Court, implying that judges are not protecting children from both abusive mothers and fathers. The chiron reads: “Judges Accused of Ignoring Abuse in Custody Battles”. However, the ONLY epidemic is WOMEN being unable to maintain custody or protect their children from fathers and it is being caused by systemic discrimination against women and male entitlement. The only reference to a father supposedly unable to protect his children from their mother was in a 5 second video clip where a reporter said the mother had murdered her children. But the mother was previously a loving mother who murdered them because the judge gave custody to their father, who she believed was abusing and sex trafficking them. (This info was in the same report the 5 second video clip came from.) So this was not a case of a judge ignoring abuse by a mother and switching custody to a father as is the theme of the series. It was another case in which the judge ignored the mother’s reports of sexual abuse. The board chair of the National Parents Organization is quoted as saying “people” use allegations of parental alienation strategically and falsely, but “people” also use allegations of abuse strategically and falsely. This bogus gender-neutral stance is intended to muddy the waters. The truth is the only epidemic in family court is judges falsely finding mothers to be falsely reporting abuse and alienating the children from their fathers, and then allowing the father to alienate the children from the mother. The article neglected to disclose that NPO is the premier fathers’ rights organization in the U.S., disguised as a gender-neutral “parent” organization. Judge Ramona Gonzalez, former president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges (NCJFCJ) said in the interview with Kate Snow, "If you have untrained judges that don't understand the dynamics of trauma ... they will make assumptions and those assumptions will lead to decisions based on error." She is lying. She knows judges are deliberately giving kids to abusive fathers. The NCJFCJ has documented the crisis for decades. Some of the mothers interviewed for this story have apparently been misled into thinking the problem is lack of training and/or laws. But it is not. The problem is judges deliberately deeming women liars, alienators, mentally ill and emotionally abusive in order to give custody to abusive, negligent or unfit fathers, so no amount of training or new laws will stop them. That means the only effective solution is to get cases OUT of Family Court and OUT of judges’ hands. What is needed is a new system in a real court with juries deciding whether there is a preponderance of evidence of abuse, not judges. The Child Custody Act provides for a new system: https://www.womenscoalitioninternational.org/enact-child-custody-act.html NBC 2 part video series: May 13th: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfb4bBMnGyM May 14th: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P1N2VagLXc NBC Article: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/jacqueline-says-she-did-everything-she-was-supposed-do-so-n1266982 Want to use your voice to make a difference? Contact Kate Snow and let her know she was misled by her interviewees and she should do a new report with the truth. Let her know the problem is systemic oppression and discrimination against women leading them to be unable to maintain custody or protect their children. CONTACT: Kate Snow or comment on her posts about this story: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tvkatesnow Twitter: https://twitter.com/tvkatesnow Voicemail: 866-639-7244 Email: contact.nbcnews@nbcuni.com Want to help end the crisis? Join The Women’s Coalition: https://www.womenscoalitioninternational.org/ For more info on the crisis: The Custody Crisis: Why It's Happening & How We Can End It https://fb.watch/55BCBfcElI/ If you appreciate the work of TWC, please consider donating! Paypal: http://bit.ly/DonateWomensCoalition Facebook Donate button Facebook Fundraiser Amazon Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/  On Wednesday, shockingly, but not surprisingly, a violent father murdered his baby—just hours after a judge dismissed a restraining order.
The Restraining Order had been in place because of his documented and criminally charged violence against the mother and threats to kill Baby Kobi. Immediately after the hearing on Wednesday in which the RO was dropped, the father put Kobi in a baby carrier and murdered her by jumping off a reservoir wall in South Australia, with the apparent intention of punishing her mother. Baby Kobi's father had been criminally charged last year with assaulting and imprisoning Kobi’s mother and for threatening to kill her. The police considered him so dangerous that they opposed his release on bail. A judge freed him anyway and charges were dropped in March for unstated reasons. As usual, the father’s history of violence, threats to kill the mother and baby, and multiple violations of restraining orders were all dismissed by the judge, obviously to keep the father entitled and empowered over “his” ex and child. The judge, working within a discriminatory system, thereby caused Baby Kobi’s death. Kobi’s case is not the exception, but the rule. Judges routinely disregard children’s safety and best interest to grant violent and unfit fathers custody and control of their children. Women must unite and fight for a new system where juries, not judges, have the power to protect children and decide custody. Join the fight for the Child Custody Act: join@womenscoalitioninternational.org NOTE: There are some reports that Kobi’s mother may have agreed to unsupervised visitation. If that is true, it is likely because she was pressured. Many women are told if they don't agree with the father having contact, they will be accused of alienating or interfering with the father’s "right" to see his children. And if they refuse, they could lose custody—which means the abusive father could get sole custody. That is what happens in custody cases every day in family courts around the world. Regardless, a judge should never give a child to a father who has threatened to kill her, no matter what anyone says. If anyone knows who the judge is who dropped the restraining order please email us at info@womenscoalitioninternational.org If you appreciate the work of The Women's Coalition, please consider donating! Paypal: http://bit.ly/DonateWomensCoalition Facebook Donate button Facebook Fundraiser Amazon Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/  Mom Commits Suicide Rather than Face Life without Children
"I might never see my children again if I'm prosecuted under a very aggressive judicial system in the States…They cannot extradite a corpse." Michele, shortly before taking her life in jail while awaiting extradition “Michele knew with certainty in her soul that she would not receive a fair trial, would be housed indefinitely in a private, for-profit prison, and would serve long years for an alleged offence that provided her no proper defence in Georgia.” Matthew Behrens, refugee advocate Michele feared never seeing her children again if extradited from Canada to U.S. on charges of interfering with custody/abducting her children. She was facing a long prison term in Georgia for “abduction”. Michele had just been arrested and was being readied for extradition when she was found dead in her jail cell of an apparent suicide. Michele had made it clear she may commit suicide if extradited, saying, “You can’t extradite a corpse.” But this made no difference to authorities. The Supreme Court, in a hotly contested decision, voted 4 to 3 to approve extradition, with the dissenting jusices calling that decision “kafkaesque”. The Canadian Minister of Justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould could have stopped the extradition but did not. She had agreed to review the case after an intense social media campaign, which The Women’s Coalition took part in, however, she eventually allowed for the extradition. She has recently resigned amidst a scandal. Fortunately the case took a long time to wind its way through all the different courts and appeals and her children are now adults, so they cannot be forced to return to their abusive father in Georgia. So the good news is that she was successful in protecting her children, even though she lost her life doing it. SUMMARY Family Court in Georgia gave sole custody of her three children to their abusive father. The children ran away from his house at ages 9, 10 and 14 and Michele took them to her native Canada. Her case got a lot of attention and support there and a social media campaign followed. Matthew Behrens, a refugee advocate, covered her case. FOLLOWING are excerpts from Matthew’s final report on Michele’s case: The last three weeks of 58-year-old single mother and abuse survivor Michele M's life were spent on the run from a multi-generational history of male violence against women and children. Despite having saved herself and her children nine years ago from an abusive ex-spouse, Michele was treated as a serious criminal by a Canadian state that, despite white ribbons and feminist window dressing, refused to acknowledge and believe the well-established history of abuse she and her children had suffered. While it was reported that Michele took her own life the evening of November 5 at the notorious Leclerc prison, it would be more accurate to conclude that her life had been stolen from her long ago by male abusers, police, judges, social services agents, media, and a system that refuses to believe or understand the reality of male violence against women. While Michele had tried with the greatest of dignity to win back piece after piece of her life through the years, she tragically ran out of hope three weeks after the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear her appeal for a second time. A former U.S. resident, Michele had been sought since 2010 for extradition from Canada to the state of Georgia to face trial for the alleged crime of interstate interference with custody. … Rather than report for custody last month, she went on the run from a forced return to the state of Georgia where, like every other U.S. jurisdiction, "domestic violence survivors have been criminalized, prosecuted, and imprisoned for acts carried out by their abusive partners. Often, these were actions that they either knew nothing about or were powerless to stop. But at trial, their experiences of abuse are often downplayed or outright dismissed." In the end, the RCMP tracked her down and arrested her in Quebec after Michele spent two weeks resisting surrender to prison. Her life ended four days later. … "Why, why, why why, why do they keep doing this to me?" she would plead with me. "Why isn't he in jail?" she asked, referencing the abusive ex-spouse who had repeatedly told the children that his goal was to see Michele either jailed for life or six feet under. Much as she feared more jail and more courts, she ultimately feared seeing him again. … I last spoke with Michele the day before she was discovered without vital signs in her jail cell. She had been arrested the previous Friday after a frantic two-week journey. She had refused to report to prison, and an arrest warrant went out for her. FROM: An act of institutional femicide: remembering the life of Michele M https://rabble.ca/columnists/2019/11/act-institutional-femicide-remembering-life-michele-m PREVIOUS POSTS: Supreme Court Orders Extradition to U.S. on "Kidnapping" Charges: Faces 15 Years Behind Bars Dissenting Female Justices Call Ruling "Kafkaesque" https://www.facebook.com/TheWomensCoalition/photos/a.1464723457135309/1674032459537740/ Christmas Victory for Hunger Striking Mom in Canadian Prison! https://facebook.com/TheWomensCoalition/photos/a.1464723457135309/1678325989108387  Amazingly, an article in the New York Times pinpoints the crucial issue underpinning the new docu-series “Allen v. Farrow. That is that women who challenge male authority in any way, but especially when reporting abuse, and even more especially when reporting sexual abuse, a long-existing cultural narrative positions them as “conniving and untrustworthy” i.e. devious liars.
Kudos to journalist Alexis Soloski [pictured] for getting it right. FOLLOWING are excerpts from the article (linked below), but it should be read in its entirety. There are two stories. In one, a father molests his 7-year-old daughter. In the other, a mother coaches that daughter to falsely accuse the father. These stories, one proposed by Mia Farrow and her advocates, one by Woody Allen and his, clearly contradict each other. No sane person can accept both. Crucially, only one lets you feel mostly OK about watching “Annie Hall” again. …In January 1992, Farrow discovered explicit Polaroids that Allen had taken of another of her daughters, her eldest, Soon-Yi Previn, then 21. That August, Dylan Farrow has said, she was abused when Allen was alone with her for perhaps 20 minutes during his visit to Mia Farrow’s home in Connecticut. Concerned by reports from babysitters and by statements that Dylan allegedly made, Farrow took the child to a pediatrician. The pediatrician reported the suspected abuse to law enforcement. Allen sued for custody. A criminal investigation began. The news media chronicled it all with the kind of fervid enthusiasm you mostly see in circus parades. (Allen has consistently denied the accusations.) …The documentary shows evidence supporting Allen, chiefly a report from the Child Sexual Abuse Clinic of the Yale-New Haven Hospital, which concluded that Dylan was either fantasizing or had been coached by her mother. On the other side is the testimony, in court and for the camera, of babysitters, family friends and Dylan herself. The judge in the custody trial ultimately labeled Allen’s behavior “grossly inappropriate.” …But at the arrhythmic heart of the matter were these two stories. Until very recently, the public preferred the one that allowed Allen to keep making movies, movies in which comparatively powerless young women willingly enter into relationships with older, more powerful men. …These stories run a big-haired gamut in terms of individual culpability, but in every case, popular culture found a way to blame the woman, often to excuse a more blameworthy man. …I asked Sarah Marshall, a journalist and a host of “You’re Wrong About,” why popular culture likes to portray women as complicit and deserving of contempt. “It justifies subjugating them,” she said. “If women are randomly taken down for possessing what we see as an alarming degree of power, even if it isn’t, then maybe they’ll be more fearful about how they wield it.” …“I don’t think we were equipped to deal with stories of abuse at that moment,” she said. Now she sees “a larger shift in our apparatus of language to understand and condemn when it comes to abuse,” [Anne Helen Peterson] said. …The “Allen v. Farrow” series, in part because it sides so unequivocally and uncritically with Mia Farrow, will convince some but not all. Still, no matter what did or didn’t happen in that Connecticut crawl space in 1992, and even though we know, or we should know, that child sexual abuse is frighteningly common and that false reports of abuse are rare, there was one story that our culture believed. Here’s how a now adult Dylan Farrow put it in a CBS interview from 2018: “What I don’t understand is how is this crazy story of me being brainwashed and coached more believable than what I’m saying about being sexually assaulted by my father?” How? Because that story reinforces norms of power and control. Because it supports an idea of women as conniving and untrustworthy. Because making women wrong — for their knees, for their autonomy — is what our culture loves to do. And if a woman like Mia Farrow — pretty, successful, comparatively wealthy — could be exposed as a villain, it becomes that much easier to delegitimize the rest of us, particularly women of color, who are more likely to experience sexual violence and less likely to report it. If you believe Allen, his story is a happy one, at least until #MeToo came along and complicated it. He marries [Mia’s adopted daughter] Previn. He makes movie after movie. He even wins another Oscar. If you believe Dylan Farrow, you recognize she grew up knowing that her abuser went unpunished, that his career flourished. That’s a terrible ending. What attitudes would our culture have to sacrifice to imagine a better one? TWC NOTE: The 3rd episode in the series will talk about Family Court involvement in the case. Watch this space for a critique of that. Will they get it right? Or not? Excerpts from: Woody Allen, Mia Farrow and What Popular Culture Wants to Believe The new HBO documentary revisits a 1990s scandal. What viewers take away from it may depend on the stories they trust about women and why. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/02/arts/television/woody-allen-mia-farrow-documentary.html?action=click&module=Editors%20Picks&pgtype=Homepage Pictured: Alexis Soloski, author of article  I was only with my daughter’s father for 8 months; however, it took me 7 years to finally get away from him. He had originally not been interested in my pregnancy, however after I finally left, he was able to use the court system as another form of control and abuse. We were in and out of the family court for seven years, with the final court case lasting three years. My ex had a well-documented criminal history of drug abuse and domestic violence, which the judge deemed irrelevant. There were also many documented incidences of violent behaviour towards other women, but these were also dismissed. Communication kept breaking down due to his violent outbursts, so I asked for contact to be returned to a contact centre to protect myself. Social services had said if I continued to let him hit me in front of my daughter, they would remove her from my care and possibly give her to him. I was absolutely dumbfounded. He retaliated by taking filing for overnight access, something he had never had. He was entitled to legal aid as he supposedly didn’t work. I did work so could not get legal aid, but also couldn’t afford an attorney. It was a vertical learning curve. I asked for a psychological assessment, which the judge was extremely reluctant to allow. Two years later, after all other means had failed, including a warrant for me to serve 10 days in prison, it was finally granted. The psychological assessment exposed him for exactly what he was. It proved I had not been lying and that he posed a serious risk to both me and my daughter. That was 15 years ago. It saddens me that nothing has changed. FROM: "Faces of the Crisis" a Women's Coalition Exhibit
http://bit.ly/FacesOfTheCrisis SHARE, comment and react in support of Emma! MORE Posts of Faces & Stories: http://bit.ly/FacesOfTheCrisisEvent Why are women losing custody in epidemic numbers? "The Custody Crisis: Why It's Happening & How We Can End It" https://youtu.be/Wgo4Rpvy7bc "FACES OF THE CRISIS" is an exhibit created by The Women's Coalition to raise awareness about the international epidemic of judges switching custody to self-serving and abusive men: https://www.womenscoalitioninternational.org Participate in the exhibit by sending your photo to: WomensCoalitionIntl@gmail.comWomensCoalitionIntl@gmail.com. You may include a brief account of how you lost custody or were unable to protect your child(ren) if you want. [NOTE: your submission may be edited for clarity, brevity or anonymity.] COLLECTION of stories from submissions: https://1drv.ms/w/s!Aof0RIpSsZZCgoZuINAXgcSlRUraxA Join The Women's Coalition to help raise awareness and fight for a new system: join@WomensCoalitionInternational.org DONATE If you appreciate the work of The Women's Coalition, please consider donating! Paypal: http://bit.ly/DonateWomensCoalition Facebook Donate button Facebook Fundraiser Amazon Smile: https://smile.amazon.com/  The first documented Custody Crisis case that we know of was recorded by Louise Armstrong [pictured] in her book “Rocking the Cradle of Sexual Politics”. It is the story of a mother who tried desperately to protect her child from serial sexual assault by the father in 1976. Despite abundant supporting evidence, including substantiation by a psychiatrist and psychologist, the judge found her to be a liar, to have coached her child to disclose. Sole custody was given to the father and she was sentenced to jail for three months. She never saw her child again.
Here is her story as told by Louise: From the court documents now before me, we learn that Mary Lou had been divorced from "Harry" in 1975. Custody of the infant child had been granted to Mary Lou with visitation to Harry. In the winter of 1976, Alice, then five years old, had complained to Mary Lou that Harry had sexually molested her. At once bewildered, perplexed, and alarmed, Mary Lou turned to a local but nationally respected child psychiatrist, 'Dr. Smith,' as well as to a local clinical psychologist, "Dr. Judith Wright." Their separate opinions were that Harry had indeed sexually molested the child. And Dr. Smith advised Mary Lou not to allow Harry further visitation (Remember, we are dealing with 1976 here, two years before incest would explode on the human interest pages of newspapers nationwide. Dr. Smith was operating on child-protective common sense.) The following month, Harry filed in the trial court, seeking to have Mary Lou held in contempt for failure to allow visitation, and seeking custody for himself. Mary Lou’s attorney filed to overrule that motion, appending the evaluations of Dr. Smith and Dr. Wright, and seeking to curtail visitation or at least forbid it to be unsupervised. The judge, 'Judge Cain,' proceeded to trail, commanding Mary Lou to proceed with proof in support of her motion to terminate visitation. At the trial of the case some four months later, Judge Cain began by commenting that it was up to Mary Lou to prove reason to terminate visitation, and up to Harry to prove reason for a reversal of custody. No further mention was made at that time of any charge of contempt of court. The court’s findings and judgment, however, included a specific finding of contempt against Mary Lou: "The petitioner has an excuse for at least the denial of visitation, that being a psychiatrist and a psychologist believed the child’s statement of child molesting. The question is not what they believed, hearing only part of the version and not knowing the background or the full factual situation: the question is what the petitioner believed, and … court firmly believed the petitioner … caused the child to make statements, knowing full well the falsity thereof" (italics mine). And so we witness here, for the first time I am aware of, the tactical shift from implicating the child (as an accomplice-witness) and thus exonerating the offender, to the focus on the mother as the source of all lies (thus exonerating the offender). With this result for Alice: "The custody of the minor child may be and is hereby transferred from the petitioner to the respondent, effective immediately, such being in the child’s best interest … The petitioner is found and adjudged to be in contempt of court for her willful, flagrant, and various violations of the orders of the court. As punishment, the petitioner shall be confined to the County Jail for a period of 90 days.” Could this have been taken, back then, as a premonition of the later backlash against child-protective women? Yes—if we could also have read at the time the impending change in social context, the vigorous efforts to once again silence women, to repeal their so-recently gained rights. One burr in Judge Cain’s saddle, as it turned out, was that Mary Lou worked at that time for an outspoken feminist and writer, whom the judge referred to as a man-hater with a poor opinion of marriage, and who he said was brainwashing Mary Lou. This southern judge would seem to have been punishing Mary Lou for, in his view, having fallen among persons with seditious ideas. At Harry’s request, Judge Cain further embellished his decision by restraining Mary Lou from all communication, direct or indirect, with the child Alice—even by use of tape recordings or through third parties. A great deal of wrangling followed, but the upshot is that Mary Lou has never since heard from or been allowed to communicate with her child (now, of course, no longer a child). TWC NOTE: Before 1976, women did not have the power to leave men without being impoverished and knew they would lose their children if they left anyway. It was only after women gained financial independence and supposed equality in the 70's, that they began leaving and hence Custody Crisis cases began. Notice this case occurred before the use of court-appointed minor’s counsels and evaluators who give judges cover. It was also before “parental alienation” gave judges something easy to hang their hat on. This shows the agenda to entitle fathers while blaming, punishing and silencing mothers and children operated even without these tactics.  A Montana Family Court judge ordered shared custody, despite Nicole's tenacious battle to maintain primary custody and protect her young son and herself from her ex, who had threatened to kill her.
It was Nicole who had to drive 2 hours to pick up her 5 year-old son from the father's house for her allotted visitation. When Nicole arrived to pick up her son, her ex opened the door and shot her in the face. When she tried to get up, he shot her again in the head. At the arraignment, the D.A. said there had been a “longstanding history of custody disputes” and that at one of the hearings, a witness had testified that the shooter/father had said he was going to buy a gun and kill Nicole. Despite this testimony, the Family Court judge still gave the father shared custody, endangering both Nicole and her son. The judge is, therefore, complicit in Nicole’s murder, and in depriving a little boy of his mother, a deep sorrow he will carry for the rest of his life. RIP Nicole! ENOUGH of this Systemic Male Entitlement in Family Court! Women must join together and take back our power to keep and protect our children! What can you do? 1. Share, react, comment! 2. Join the Coalition! WomensCoalitionInternational.org 3. Help raise awareness by telling friends, family and acquaintances that women are losing custody in epidemic numbers and unable to protect our children due to Systemic Discrimination against Women/Sexism, and that we are uniting to demand a new system. Let them know they can go to the Coalition website for more information. [Watch the "Custody Crisis" powerpoint video for help in explaining why this crisis is occurring: https://bit.ly/CustodyCrisis] NOTE: It is unknown if there was other domestic violence or child abuse or who the Family Court judge was. If you know plz pm with that info. MSM: Ennis neighborhood shocked after woman fatally shot in front of residence https://www.kbzk.com/news/crime-courts/ennis-neighborhood-shocked-after-woman-fatally-shot-in-front-of-residence If you appreciate the work of The Women's Coalition, please consider donating! Paypal: http://bit.ly/DonateWomensCoalition Facebook donate button Facebook fundraiser Amazon Smile: https://smile.amazon.com  The “Abuse Rabbit Hole” is one of many rabbit holes women get caught in when trying to make sense of why they lost custody or were not able to protect their children in Family Court. The “Custody Crisis Rabbit Holes” series reveals the most common ways women get sidetracked from understanding and fighting the core cause of the Custody Crisis. It is important to recognize these rabbit holes divert from what is really going on in contested custody cases, because it is only by attacking and eliminating the root cause of the crisis--systemic male entitlement--that women will be able to stop the rampant, unjust switching of custody to abusive and self-serving fathers.
The Abuse Rabbit Hole is by far the most populous of the Custody Crisis rabbit holes, in part because most contested custody cases involve reports of abuse by women and/or children, hence abuse appears to be the fundamental issue. Also, because women whose cases involve abuse are much more likely to become activists or join social media groups due to the serious nature of their situation. But also in large part because organizations, groups, professionals, and activists have misled mothers into believing the crisis is essentially about abuse, i.e. that that “judges are giving custody to abusers”, rather than “judges are switching custody to fathers”. MISIDENTIFICATION OF THE CENTRAL ISSUE The main problem with the abuse rabbit hole is the fundamental issue of the custody crisis is misidentified as abuse. However, abuse cannot be the core issue because it is not the common denominator in all Custody Crisis cases. Approximately one quarter of cases do not involve reports of abuse, yet judges still switch custody to fathers, many of whom want to avoid child support, maintain control, or seek revenge. The only common denominator in Custody Crisis cases, in fact, is disparity in the judicial delegation of power--the empowerment of fathers to take custody of children, and abuse them if they so choose; and the disempowerment of mothers to maintain custody and protect their children. Abuse groups misidentify how and why the crisis is happening as well. They endorse the false narrative that judges disbelieve mothers’ reports of abuse and believe fathers’ denials due to lack of education or training. In fact, judges don’t disbelieve women; they discredit them. And they don’t believe fathers; they credit them. Judges routinely falsely find women to be liars, alienators, mentally ill or emotionally abusive simply as a tactic to switch custody. They commonly disregard and conceal credible evidence of abuse by fathers in the process. ABUSE IS GENDER NEUTRAL A major problem with the abuse perspective is that it is essentially gender neutral, since, of course, abuse is bad regardless of whether fathers or mothers commit it. But that deflects from the fact that in contested custody cases, the only injustice happening in epidemic numbers is good mothers losing custody to abusive and self-serving fathers. In the relatively rare cases in which a judge takes custody away from a good father and switches to an abusive mother, it happens for different reasons. Conflating cases involving mothers who are being discriminated against, with fathers losing custody because of a bad judge, leads to confusion and division, and diverts from an effective solution. Although some abuse groups acknowledge gender bias occurs, it is usually attributed it to individual judges’ unconscious biases or ignorance, which could be remedied through education or new laws. This misses the crux of the issue: that it is the system itself that is the problem, with its underlying agenda to keep the father entitled and empowered in his family after divorce, so training judges and court-affiliated professionals and new DV and child protection laws will not a significant difference in the crisis. A major problem with gender neutral abuse groups is that they often include fathers’ rights activists [FRA’s] who claim their ex-wife has made false allegations of abuse against them, accusing her of “parental alienation” [another convoluted Rabbit Hole]. FRA’s started by claiming that men are being discriminated against in Family Court, but have branched off into gender neutral “parents”, “family” and “children” focused groups after failing to prove systemic discrimination against fathers. These offshoots, which now make up the bulk of the FRA movement, assert generic Family Court corruption, i.e. the “divorce industry”, is the problem; and mandatory equal parenting, which is very harmful to women and children, is the solution. This gender neutral approach also sows confusion and division and will be discussed in the “Gender Neutral” Rabbit Hole. OFFSHOOTS IN THE ABUSE RABBIT HOLE There are many offshoots within the abuse rabbit hole. Some “abuse groups” focus on child abuse, some on spousal abuse or domestic violence, and some are inclusive of different forms of abuse. Some prominent abuse groups focus on sexual abuse, narcissistic abuse and Child Protective Services mishandling of abuse cases. A substantial percentage of cases involve reports of sexual abuse--approximately 50%, according to respondents of a TWC poll. So it’s not surprising women get detoured into the groups opposing pedophilia, organized sexual abuse or ritual abuse. Some activists contend “sex trafficking” is what is occurring, which comes under the “children as commodities” explanation. Although some court officials do profit from sexual abuse cases, financial incentives do not explain all, or even most, Custody Crisis cases. [The “Money Rabbit Hole” discusses the financial motivation theory in depth.] Although there are some cases in which the father is involved in organized abuse, it is important to recognize that the vast majority of sexual abuse cases involve otherwise upstanding fathers, who are simply abusing their parental power. The narcissistic abuse rabbit hole is also quite populous. It is safe to say that most men who would launch a custody battle from hell and deprive children of a loving mother would have narcissistic traits, if not full-blown narcissistic personality disorder. That means most mothers in Family Court are battling narcissistic exes; hence, it’s a popular place for women to relate, vent and commiserate. However, these mothers are being misled into thinking the crisis is caused by judges not understanding narcissism, whether the mother or the father, and that educating them is the solution. Another branch of the abuse rabbit hole is occupied by Child Protective Services [CPS] activists, as many mothers blame CPS for their loss of custody. Either social workers didn’t do a proper investigation of abuse by the father, didn’t substantiate the abuse, or, worse, reported falsely that the mother was abusive. The fact is, CPS rarely does decent investigations or substantiates abuse by middle to upper class fathers. They are acutely aware of the possibility of being sued by middle class fathers, so they usually only pick on powerless poor fathers and single mothers. CPS shunts cases into family court, fully aware judges ignore or minimize abuse by fathers. Not uncommonly, CPS colludes with a Family Court judge and removes children into foster care as an intermediate step to placing them with the father. And, while some mothers get involved in “legal kidnapping” or “forced adoption” advocacy, in which CPS removes children into foster care, it’s important to recognize that dependency cases are different than contested custody cases and require different solutions. CONCLUSION Misidentification of the central issue of the crisis as being abuse has led to advocacy for ineffective solutions, which is apparently a major reason why, for decades, nothing has changed. Two main categories of solutions pursued by abuse groups are: 1) training/educating judges and court-affiliated professionals; and 2) enactment of new child protection and domestic violence laws. But education won’t help, as evidenced by judges’ deliberate disregard and suppression of credible evidence of abuse by fathers and the fabrication of negative evidence about mothers. And new child protection/DV laws won’t help, because Family Court judges violate laws (and rights) with impunity. Mothers commonly cry, “Judges need more oversight/accountability!” But there is no way to hold judges accountable within the Family Court system: that is the point. The system is designed specifically so that they have virtually unlimited discretion, i.e. nearly absolute power, and can use it to keep men empowered in their family. Hopefully, an understanding that the Custody Crisis is not being caused by judges unwittingly giving custody to abusers, but by judges deliberately switching custody to fathers, will help women escape the abuse rabbit hole and unite to fight the core cause of the epidemic: systemic male entitlement. Since the Family Court system is designed so judges can empower fathers and disempower mothers, the only way to end the crisis is for women to unite as a class, as half the population, and demand a new system. The Child Custody Act codes for a new system in which women’s right to due process and equal protection, and children’s right to safety and wellbeing are safeguarded. Join The Women’s Coalition and help raise awareness and fight for the Child Custody Act. www.WomensCoalitionInternational.org  We hereby petition U.S. Senators to permit Coral Anika Theill and other former members of People of Praise to testify at the confirmation hearing of Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court of the United States.
Coral's request to U.S. Senators detailing her abuse: https://www.womenscoalitioninternational.org/news/coral-theill-makes-request-to-senators-to-testify-at-amy-coney-barretts-confirmation-hearing Ms. Theill must be allowed to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee and the public about the gender discrimination, subjugation and crimes committed against her in Amy Coney Barrett's sect. By being a leader in the sect, Judge Barrett is complicit in the subjugation and oppression of women and even of crimes, as Coral bravely details in her letter to Senators requesting to testify. Judge Barrett declared, “A legal career is but a means to an end, and that end is building the kingdom of God.” This, along with statements supporting her destructive stance on women’s issues, makes it clear that Barrett’s ideology will influence her rulings and set women’s fight for equality and autonomy back a century. We know from experience that patriarchal influence in our judiciary has very real, negative effects, as women are routinely discriminated against in Family Courts across the country. Judges are taking custody away from women in epidemic numbers and placing children under the control of abusive and self-serving fathers. A judge took Coral’s 8 children away from her, including a nursing infant, and allowed the father to turn them against her. The California Judicial Council acknowledges, “Family Law is an area in which gender bias is rampant in the courts.” This form of discrimination is causing incalculable harm to countless women and their children. Women will never be equal or free until they have the power to maintain custody and protect their children after divorce. If we mean to fix persisting sexism in our State and Federal courts, and we should, we cannot allow anyone who supports patriarchal control of women to be on the highest court in the land. In the name of gender equality, we take the stand that such serious allegations of complicity in the oppression and subjugation of women against Barrett must not go unaddressed or uninvestigated. We need the truth of Amy Coney Barrett's involvement in her sexist sect to be debated in the public arena, in full view of voters. For that we need testimony of Coral Anika Theill. SIGN PETITION: https://www.change.org/p/kamala-harris-d-ca-allow-coral-theill-to-testify-at-amy-barrett-s-confirmation-hearing For more information on the custody crisis: WomensCoalitionInternational.org |
AuthorCindy Dumas, M.A. has been researching, writing, and raising awareness about the Custody Crisis since 2003, when she was unable to protect her children from their abusive father. She fled into hiding when Family Court failed her and was tricked into returning home, when her children were given to their abusive father. Archives
August 2021
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