Ads taken out for ‘anti-smacking’ repeal

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4841414a11.html

Ads taken out for ‘anti-smacking’ repeal

Sunday, 08 February 2009
Lobby group Family First has placed advertisements in all three Sunday newspapers calling for the repeal of the “anti-smacking law”.
The advertisement described four cases where parents were investigated by Child, Youth and Family following the repeal of Section 59 of the Crimes Act, which removed the defence of reasonable force for parents who physically punish their children.
A late amendment to the law added the proviso that police had the discretion not to prosecute complaints against a parent where the offence was considered to be inconsequential.
The cases referred to CYF included two where parents admitted smacking their children as a last resort and one where CYF investigated when her child told a friend’s mother he had been smacked.
The fourth involved a child complainant who was found to have been angry with her mother for being grounded.
“The tragedy is that families are seeking help in their role as parents but as soon as they acknowledge that they smack or have smacked, they are immediately being referred to CYF and their children are being removed,” Family First director Bob McCoskrie said.
CYF eventually closed the investigation in all four cases, the advertisements say.
A fifth example described a case where a woman was suspended by a community centre for what Family First says was a tap on the back of the hand.
She was eventually reinstated after the employer dropped the case after her lawyer intervened.
Mr McCoskrie called for the repeal of the law, saying it was penalising good parents while not tackling the real causes of child abuse.
-NZPA

  http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25016345-12377,00.html

Family Court review after death of Darcey Freeman

February 06, 2009
Article from:  Australian Associated Press
THE Federal Government has asked for a review of the Family Court's handling of a case involving the family of a young girl who was thrown from Melbourne's West Gate Bridge.
Darcey Freeman, four, died after she plunged 58 metres from the bridge last week. Her father Arthur Phillip Freeman has been charged with her murder. 

Federal Attorney-General Robert McClelland has asked his department to review the family's case.
"Family law is an extremely difficult area and if there is anything we can learn from this tragedy to improve how the system is run we will not hesitate to take the necessary action," Mr McClelland said.
Victorian Premier John Brumby welcomed the review. 

"Anybody that's got family or friends who dealt with the Family Court, you know the system isn't perfect, I think it's very timely to review this case and to see the way in which it was managed," Mr Brumby said.
"It's a federal responsibility and I think the sooner that review's undertaken the better." 

Mr Brumby reiterated his desire to see a tribute to Darcey and all children built into Children's Week, which is held in the first week of October.

Secondhand Children - HUMAN EVENTS

It's been weeks since the last one, so on Sunday, The New York Times Magazine featured yet another cheery, upbeat article on single mothers. As with all its other promotional pieces on single motherhood over the years, the Times followed a specific formula to make this social disaster sound normal, blameless and harmless -- even brave.

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Men Shouldn't Be Overlooked as Victims of Partner Violence

http://pn.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/full/42/15/31-a

Clinical & Research News

Men Shouldn't Be Overlooked as Victims of Partner Violence

Joan Arehart-Treichel
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 are—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."


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."
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.
An abstract of "Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence" is posted at <www.ajph.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/5/941>

The Three Stages Of A Man's Life

The Three Stages Of A Man's Life 
SINGLE 


MARRIED 


DIVORCED 


ANY QUESTIONS?

Children betrayed by 'rampant individualism' of parents'Selfish Generation, says report

Children do best when brought up by two parents with a 'longterm commitment' to each other, a major new study has found.

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Anguished dads unite over Darcey

Quote: Research has shown that men without their children are five times more prone to commit suicide than fathers who live with their children.

You can only understand the huge heartbreak when your children are removed from your life through no fault of your own by experiencing it. Suicide is painless, unlike the unfair and cruel Family Court.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/anguished-dads-unite-over-darcey/2009/01/31/1232818794642.html

The Sydney Morning Herald
1 February 2009

Anguished dads unite over Darcey
By Conrad Walters

As vigilantes on Facebook called for capital punishment to be reinstated for the father of Darcey Freeman, who was thrown from Melbourne's West Gate Bridge, support organisations for separated families yesterday appealed for people to understand the pressures faced by estranged parents.

Eighteen Facebook groups with more than 60,000 members in total have united on the social networking site as people from around the world continue to express sorrow over Thursday's death of the four-year-old girl.

Most comments offered sympathy to the child's mother and two surviving brothers, but many directed their emotions towards the child's father, Arthur Freeman, 35, who has been charged with murder.

One member sought to lobby politicians, writing, "Bring back the death penalty" for "child killers". Subsequent postings sought vengeance.

But Wendy Sturgess, chief executive for Crisis Support Services, said Mensline Australia, a phone line for fathers suffering after family break-ups, had seen a spike in calls from anguished fathers.

Ms Sturgess said: "We've had many, many calls ... in the past two days from right around the country from men saying to us, 'I know what it's like to be driven to that point. I know what it's like to be so much in pain that that's the only way I can think, to end my life or to end my children's lives.' Some men are ringing, saying ... 'I realise how close I've been to doing that myself."'

Other callers were equally disturbed by the incident and felt shamed by their own behaviour, a response that Ms Sturgess said was counterproductive.

"If we isolate them and make them demons, they'll be less likely to seek help," she said.

Mensline Australia receives up to 150 calls a day and helps 50,000 men a year.

Research has shown that men without their children are five times more prone to commit suicide than fathers who live with their children.

While not condoning the actions allegedly taken by Freeman, Ms Sturgess urged people to try to view the case with compassion.

"How horrific the circumstances must have been for him to do what he did," she said. "Vigilantes saying that this man should be strung up … [it] just breeds more hate."

The Mensline Australia counselling line is available 24 hours a day: 1300
789 978.