Sunday, January 04, 2009

Synopsis ...

Australian Children and Women Trapped Overseas by Domestic Violence & Systemic& Judicial Failures – Situation Synopsis

*Met my former spouse in Australia, late 1984 (his sixth trip to Australia, informed me he wanted to live in Australia permanently & thought Australia a better place to bring up children than Canada).

*Married in Australia, 1986, moved to Saskatchewan, Canada, where our children were born, supposedly for ten years.

*In 1995, because of his sustained abusive and controlling behaviour, I left my husband, taking my children with me

*1996 we divorced. Thereafter followed protracted adjudication of custody rights, judge ordered a custody and access home study, completed by Mr J C, assessor, Family Law Division, ... Department of Justice.

*A number of professionals and senior staff of advocacy groups expressed serious concerns regarding the custody and access report. The justice department assessor, Jeff Cain, not only misrepresented my children’s and my information regarding our family situation and the abuse we experienced, but also information from a doctor, social worker with the Domestic Violence Support Group, counsellor and preschool teacher. He also refused to speak with others including the social worker from the Child Witnesses Support Group one of my children attended and experts such as Dr Peter Jaffe, international expert on child witnesses to domestic violence. This child wrote a story, based on their experience of violence in our family which was used by counsellors and in the educational documentary “How Then Shall We Live: A Process for Developing a Plan to Escape Abusive Relationships”.

*Some concerns as articulated in a letter regarding our experience to ... Q.C. Director Policy Planning and Evaluation Branch, ... Justice, from ..., Psychologist, ... Family Service Bureau dated May 13, 1999 include …
“We want to take this opportunity to let you know, from our point of view, Ms …’s case is not unique except insofar as she has had the persistence and financial resources to pursue her dissatisfaction with the assessment process and its impact on her and her children. Members of our staff have worked with at least five (5) women who reported similar experiences to that of Ms …
Common themes among the women were as follows:

i Failure on the part of the male assessor to understand or believe the impact that spousal violence had on the women

ii Failure on the part of the male assessor to understand or believe the impact that their father’s physical and/or verbal violence had on the children

iii A propensity on the part of the male assessor to include as part of his report, those witnesses who minimized or denied the existence of violence and to minimize or exclude witnesses who reported violence as a factor that may contraindicate the advisability of joint custody arrangements.”

*The assessor’s actions were also in direct contravention of the ... Justice Department’s core standards of practice outlined in the “Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluations” in place at that time, and in our case despite the specific instructions from the judge to the assessor to investigate any evidence of domestic violence.

*Eventually, as a result of our concerns being continually raised with the Justice Department, parameters for a review of the case were cooperatively developed by myself, D F, B P Executive Director Policy, Planning and Evaluation and B H Executive Director, Family Law Division. The ‘parameters’ document (June 1999) clearly called for a check on whether the custody/access assessment accurately reflected the views of the professionals consulted and my children and myself, and whose views were included and excluded from the report. Appropriate coverage of these requirements necessitated re-contacting the sources of information cited in the report and the ‘parameters’ document clearly specified contact with the referees used for the assessment. None of these processes, all of which accord with the “Model Standards of Practice for Child Custody Evaluations” were observed. Instead, two individuals who were appointed to conduct the review based their findings solely on the Family Law Division employee’s notes and report. Illogically, and in bad faith given the earlier undertakings, the alleged bias and misrepresentation in the report was tested by using the material case notes being called into question.

*The failure to implement the comprehensive custody and access home study review in its negotiated and agreed form exacerbated the intense personal stress I was experiencing. My ongoing requests for assistance, support, safety and security for my children and myself were ignored and eventually my abusive former spouse gained custody of our children and used this opportunity to undermine my relationship with my daughters, alienating us and contributing to one of my children's attempted suicide.

*My former spouse set out to silence and destroy me because I left, wouldn’t come back when he insisted and spoke up about the abuse. The Justice Department condoned and colluded with my former spouse’s violence and abuse by having their employee misrepresent information about it, not dealing with this when they were made aware, having not dealt with this known problem previously (as Family Service Bureau letter said they had worked with at least 5 other women who had same experience).

*Neither my former spouse nor the Justice Department cared about the consequences for my children or me and the department obviously had not been concerned about the consequences for any other children and women that their employees had previously misrepresented information about in court in regards to the abuse they experienced. B P. Justice, said to me when she introduced herself at a Justice Department focus group on how to deal with domestic violence and custody and access, “What happened to you should never have happened to anyone”. Then she used all her department’s resources and power to fight me and not deal with, but cover-up the situation. Eventually I lost custody because I was no longer able to survive as a result of their joint efforts and my inability to get the assistance, safety, security and justice we needed and deserved. Like other “whistleblowers” I have been depressed, suicidal and unable to work as a consequence of the fight and the backlash.

*The new “Model Standards of Practice” for the Justice Department regarding custody and access home studies show the influence of my information; for example, they now state that the assessor must not directly contact the judge out of court. ... not only misrepresented information in his report and court testimony but he also contacted the judge out of court, behind the scenes, to share misrepresented information. I only found out about this a long time afterwards. None of the changes made assisted or applied to us.

*More recently I was put in contact with another Australian mother, originally from ..., who with her four children had suffered a similar, traumatic injustice in the same Canadian province.

*As Honorary Professor Tony Vinson, Faculty of Education and Social Work, The University of Sydney, states in a letter of support dated 27.7.2008, “From my reading of the documents surrounding this case I believe there is sufficient evidence of a factual basis to Ms …’s claims to warrant serious consideration by the Canadian Justice authorities.”

*These concerns, raised many times before and again in Professor Vinson’s and my recent letters to Canadian authorities have once again been dismissed. No one, including the Australian Government, is holding any Canadian authority publicly accountable to providing justice in our case – unlike the Australian governments provision of resources, advocacy and intervention to ensure “judicial fairness” for Harry Nicholiades, Annise Smoel, Angelita Pires, David Hicks, Schapelle Corby, the “Bali Nine”, Australians arrested in Canada while protesting against the seal slaughter/hunt, Australians who boarded Japanese whalers and many others. This lack of assistance is not congruent with public government statements regarding domestic violence or statements made in the recent government media release regarding acceding to the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

*Experiencing domestic and family violence is traumatic. Experiencing systemic and judicial failures, discrimination, inadequacies and inequities is traumatic. Discovering that your country and government will provide assistance and advocacy for criminals and other Australians overseas but not innocent and vulnerable Australian children and women is another indescribably traumatic experience.

*Have now used all my resources to fight the systems that should have protected us; I no longer have the resources, finances, hope or capacity to continue. I am desperately concerned about my children, myself, the other Australian woman mentioned above and her children’s safety and wellbeing, my personal possessions and some documents still in Canada, none of whom or which I have any resources or ability to advocate for or try to protect any longer.

*Despite Dr Peter Jaffe, (Centre for Research and Education on Violence Against Children and Women, University of Western Ontario), telling me I have done more than any other mother he knows to try and protect my children, despite bringing information to ... Justice that made change (for others after us), despite being a woman who has taken on a justice department … I am now financially, physically and emotionally bankrupt, afraid, have no sense of success or accomplishment, not able to clearly articulate information, no longer able to be a creative problem solver, not sure how to proceed or what to do next.

*Ethics Counsellor at St Lames Ethics Centre, staff at the Human Rights Law Resource Centre, counsellors and many others all agree that I have done everything I could have and should have on my children’s and my behalf, are amazed at what I have done on my own, incredulous that I have survived myself and do not know what else to suggest.

*Despite contacting members of the National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children to beg for their assistance and advocacy, none of these government appointed people would assist or advocate for us and agreed to the governments terms of reference for the committee and its recently released National Plan “Time for Action” that deliberately excluded mentioned or referring to Australian women and children who have experienced domestic violence overseas but does contain specific mention of the challenges faced in Australia by immigrant women and their children who experience domestic violence and makes specific recommendations to assist and protect them – while refusing to even acknowledge the same trauma and challenges for Australians in foreign countries. What other known aspects of domestic violence and systemic and judicial discrimination and failures did the committee, the government and Australian Domestic and Family Violence Clearinghouse agree (collude) to exclude from public discourse and the National Plan?


Prepared July 2009,
“Merinda”

For further information please go to www.womenwhowant2gohome.blogspot.com the online resource I created in the form of a blog.

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