It is a human right to be free from torture, discrimination and not to mention the rights of the child to know his or her parents.
What happened?
What happened was unfortunate to say the least. The cruelty and oppression that occurs to mothers and children seeking protection and safety from violence.
Violence against women has become well known as a global problem with empirical research that uncovers the detriment that occurs toward children even just witnessing it.
What is not well known is the treatment of mothers and children when they seek protection.
If a stranger had perpetrated the same acts, they would be punished and the victim would not have to face them again.
Imagine if someone had threatened to kill you, held you hostage, beat you and degraded you into believing that no one will listen..
One fine day it occurs to you, that noone should be treated this way, so you find a way and leave.
Sounds like a happy ending?
You have a child..
Thats ok you can tell the courts what happened and surely they will protect you and your child?
No...Sadly the courts are entrenched against battered mothers and even worse if they seek protection of the children.
Because of the closed court rooms, Cruelty and brutality can emerge as these courts are not monitored and some court room cultures are entrenched with violence supportive attitudes that re-victimize mothers and children with coercive control - The same tactics the abuser uses but with the power of legal authority.
Erickson, Nancy S. (2005, Spring). Use of the MMPI-2 in Child Custody Evaluations Involving Battered Women: What Does Psychological Research Tell Us? Family Law Quarterly vol 39, no. 1, p. 87-108.
Erickson notes:
The effects of domestic violence on survivors, who are primarily women, may be severe. Battered women's advocates often note that, in custody cases, the batterer often "looks better" to the court than the victim does because he is confident and calm, whereas she is still suffering the effects of his abuse and therefore may appear hysterical, weepy, anger, or otherwise not "together."When a custody evaluation is conducted by a psychologist, the revised version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) is often used as part of the evaluation process. The MMPI-2, like other traditional psychological tests, was not designed to be used in custody evaluations and arguably should not be used for such purpose except "when specific problems or issues that these tests were designed to measure appear salient in the case."
The effects of domestic violence on survivors, who are primarily women, may be severe. Battered women's advocates often note that, in custody cases, the batterer often "looks better" to the court than the victim does because he is confident and calm, whereas she is still suffering the effects of his abuse and therefore may appear hysterical, weepy, anger, or otherwise not "together."
When a custody evaluation is conducted by a psychologist, the revised version of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) is often used as part of the evaluation process. The MMPI-2, like other traditional psychological tests, was not designed to be used in custody evaluations and arguably should not be used for such purpose except "when specific problems or issues that these tests were designed to measure appear salient in the case."
If it used, Erickson notes that "great care must be taken" as "a misinterpretation could result in placing custody of a child with a batterer, which could put the child at severe risk."
Erickson reviews research on the use of MMPI evaluations with battered women and found that that the psychological stress that battered women suffer may result in MMPI scores that do not accurately evaluate their ability to parent.
Some of the methods used to rationalize these abuses are:
Parent Alienation Syndrome
Whilst this syndrome is not widely accepted amongst the psychological community, it has been used as a method for abusers to obtain custody and continue to use the children as a tool of oppression and torture against the battered mother.
Parent alienation syndrome supporters claims that mostly battered mothers brainwash their children to make up allegations of child abuse. In fact most abuse claims are substantiated but often ignored or discounted. Being a closed court the perpetrator can bribe the judge into setting up the cases so that none of this evidence is kept or acknowledged.
Emery, R. E., Otto, R. K., & O'Donohue, W. T. (2007). Custody Evaluations: Limited Science and a Flawed System. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 6(1), 1-29.
Theoretically, the law guides and controls child custody evaluations, but the prevailing custody standard (the ''best interests of the child'' test) is a vague rule that directs judges to make decisions unique to individual cases according to what will be in children's future (and undefined) best interests. Furthermore, state statutes typically offer only vague guidelines as to how judges (and evaluators) are to assess parents and the merits of their cases, and how they should ultimately decide what custody arrangements will be in a child's best interests. In this vacuum, custody evaluators typically administer to parents and children an array of tests and assess them through less formal means including interviews and observation. Sadly, we find that (a) tests specifically developed to assess questions relevant to custody are completely inadequate on scientific grounds; (b) the claims of some anointed experts about their favorite constructs (e.g., ''parent alienation syndrome'') are equally hollow when subjected to scientific scrutiny; (c) evaluators should question the use even of well-established psychological measures (e.g., measures of intelligence, personality, psychopathology, and academic achievement) because of their often limited relevance to the questions before the court; and (d) little empirical data exist regarding other important and controversial issues (e.g., whether evaluators should solicit children's wishes about custody; whether infants and toddlers are harmed or helped by overnight visits), suggesting a need for further scientific investigation.
In the diagnostic and statistical manual most diagnosis's blame mothers for illnesses but account for little evidence that in fact mothers are at fault:
Mother Blame has always been a favorate psy sport: From the refigerator mother who was said to have caused autism, to the skitzophrenogenic mother to the mother who was said to inspire juvinile delinquincy in her young. Paula Caplan and Ian Hall Mc Corquodale (1985) read 125 articles from nine psy journals and found 72 different kinds of psychopathology attributed to mothers, including avoidance of peers, chronic vomiting, anxiety, arson, delusions, depression, dependency, failure to mourn, fetishism, frigidity, hyperactivity, inability to separate from mother, incontinence, incest, isolation, loneliness, marijuana use, moodiness, narcissim, poor concentration, scapegoating, school drop out, self induced television epilepsy, tantrums, truency. So mother-blame is not what takes one by surprise here. It is the opportunity to view the hospitalization of an adolescent from an overseeing psychiatrists viewpoint: it is what one finds when one witnesses in action the(not objective, but as Joel Kovel put it) objectifying gaze.
Human Rights Tribunal on Domestic Violence and Child Custody sponsored by the Battered Mothers' Testimony Project based at the Wellesley Centers for Women in Massachusetts (2002) [3]
A multi-year, four-phase study using qualitative and quantitative social science research methodologies by the Wellesley Centers for Women. Battered women reported having to participate in wrenching custody battles with their ex-spouse to keep their children. They noted that their problems were aggravated and sometimes prolonged in the courts or by social service agencies. The battered women testified that they have been wrongly perceived as hysterical and have been accused of lying. The research found widespread adoption of "parental alienation syndrome," and found "a consistent pattern of human rights abuses" by family courts, including failure to protect battered women and children from abuse, discriminating against and inflicting degrading treatment on battered women, and denying battered women due process. Histories of abuse of mother and children were routinely ignored or discounted. They also reported that evidence of abuse was often ignored, judges were insensitive, and guardians ad litem - the court-assigned advocates for children - made poor assessments. Domestic violence advocates reported that women who fear the family court process stay in abusive situations instead of seeking help.
