Social Services punish mothers for DV

[SantasSackura]

Why do they do this?
Why is it that no-one is under any obligation to keep the abuser away from the mother, and yet the mother has a responsibility to keep her children away from the abuser?
The very fact that the authorities need the mother to "prove" she is taking steps to keep the children save show that they believe the husband is abusive/violent. ANd yet it's not him who is hounded or punished.
I'm so at hearing women whose partners are given bail after committing some atrocity against their wife or children, only to do it again as soon as they get back home, and for the mother to be told she is endangering her children.
The law is so backward
Surely if the man is known to be abusive, you take steps to remove him from the home????

I'm sorry that you have Sackura, but from your post it was one specific situation?
I've been a primary teacher for over two decades, and the sheer helplessness of watching child after child, year after year in situations verging from mild to severe abuse, all different sorts has made me very wary of all the excuses I've heard from the parents.
No one wants to involve SS, but sometimes it's the only way that the child can be safe.
Being in care is not a satisfactory solution either.

But where is the father/abuser's obligation to protect his children? That is my point. The children have a right not to witness abuse and he is the one jeapordizing that right

GoblinChild I really don'T want to go into specifics about my violent upbringing.
I think you made a mistake by reducing my argument to academic pontificating...

he does have an obligation santa and if teh father is tehre when SS come to visit he will be told that there is to be no more violence. but if he isn't there to be told, what can SS do?? they can't go round teh houses looking for him.

'I think you made a mistake by reducing my argument to academic pontificating...'

I had no intention of demeaning your argument, or implying that it was less valid in any way. If you read my post again, I was attempting to explain my lack of objectivity, and how that influences my opinions.

Ilove why do you think there is even a need for feminists?

I think the ways mothers and fathers are treated are different and, as usual, mothers' behaviour is held to a higher standard than fathers'

But when it suits the law, they try to say that mothers and fathers have an equal stake in children

X posts "what can SS do?? they can't go round teh houses looking for him."

I'm not exactly sure myself what can be done about all this.

*Goblinchild"

I think you made a mistake when you said:

"If I didn't have that long history of first-hand experience, I might be able to be more dispassionate and analytical."

Implying that I am dispassionate and analytical in my arguments, when nothing could be further from the truth

I haven't read it all but skimming I think I'm going to repeat people.

You can not arrest someone without a crime, for there to be a crime there has to be a victim for there to be a victim you have to have a report. If a person (male or female, I'll call them victim now) is being abused by their partner there is nothing anyone can do to arrest that person until the victim reports it. You mention murder but you do have a victim in a murder and it doesn't need the victim to come forward. If you choose to live in a domestic violent home that's up to you. If your friend/ relative/ neighbour/ teacher complains to the police that you are being abused they can come out and speak to you but if you're not willing to press charges then they can't do much other than log it or go on what happens when they're there. For example we used to call the police regularly on our neighbour who we'd hear throw down the stairs and all sorts. It got to the point where we'd call 999 and say "Fred's beating his wife again" and there would be police there foot/ car/ riot van within two minutes. He would regularly be arrested because he was drunk and would try and fight the police, but unless Fred's wife made a complaint they couldn't do anything about the DV.

If the police come out and there are children or the children's teachers complain about it then social services will be involved because it is abusive to the children to witness it or even be in another room. They will be spoken to be social services, social services will offer help to the victim to allow them to withdraw from the situation but they can't force the victim to leave. The victim will be told that unless they remove the children from the situation social services must. Social services only have the children as their priority.

Who else should remove the children from the situation? The abuser? How likely are they to leave do you think? Would you want to leave your children with your abusive ex?

The children are being abused and unless someone takes the children away what do you expect them to do?

"But where is the father/abuser's obligation to protect his children? That is my point. The children have a right not to witness abuse and he is the one jeapordizing that right"

Children being abused will generally be subject to investigations, courts and care orders. This is no different. Giving the victim chance to take the children themselves before they go down the road of having them taken into care.

Parents have a responsibility to protect their children. If one of them becomes abusive, the other has the responsibility of keeping the children and themselves safe.
If they chose not to, others must and will take on board the needs of the children, but the adult needs to be responsible for themselves.
They can choose to go, stay, seek help, accuse and follow through or accuse and then withdraw...all the different possible combinations of responses.
Children have much less power than adults of either sex.

"If the police come out and there are children or the children's teachers"

I didn't mean it like that anyone can call social services and say that they know someone with children being abused.

I know, but it's back to evidence again, and emotional abuse is the hardest one to prove.
Teachers can flag up problems, collect what evidence is possible, but the other adult involved is best-placed to give a detailed and accurate account of what is occurring.

I wasn't responding to your post :) I just read it and thought "No, that's not right!"

Anyone reporting DV in a family should be listened to. Family/ friends/ neighbours might be more aware of it than a teacher who could be interpreting what a child tells them or does (see the post about perks of being a teacher). Basically we should all take responsibility to the children of the world, including reporting abuse when we see it, even if it's one parent abusing another.

GoblinChild CHildren have less power than adults of both sex, but what I am discusing here is how mothers have less power than fathers. Just like with rape, I don't believe that women make up the fact they're being beaten and abused. What more evidence do you need than a mother's word?

I also see that the bar for mothers' behaviour is higher; but when it suits the system, fathers and mothers suddenly have an equal stake in children. This double standard gets my goat.

The system is flawed, and it would be interesting to read some posts by someone like Ilove who says that people are attempting to make changes from within

I simply do not care that it is difficult to remove an abuser and blah blah. The system has to be changed, somehow, in order to make this a more feasible option.
I also don't understand the posters who keep saying that removing an abuser is separate issue to protecting the children. It is not. Removing the abuser is protecting the children. It's the swiftest and most efficient way of protecting the children.

Hold on a sec, I thought that the law had been changed so that charges could be brought against people who committed DV without a complaint from the victim. There was a big thing about them putting advertising on beer mats which basically said "if you go home and beat your wife up, we can get you, even if she won't say a word".

So a lot of the arguments on here are not right I think? As if there is evidence of abuse, the police can intervene without a complaint from the victim.

Also that I understood sakura's OP, very well. I do believe (IME) that certain processes and people in SS are inherently sexist, as Sakura says, putting a much higher standard of behaviour etc on the mother than the father.

THank you ISNT.
If it's true that you don't need a complaint from the wife, then that has discredited a lot of people's posts on here: the ones who have been saying the woman can be held accountable for the children's safety [as opposed to the abuser being held accountable for their safety]
And it has made me feel a lot better to hear that too, so I hope it is true that the police can intervene, in which case all SS would need to do would be to contact the police and, together, they'd have the power to remove the abuser

Which means that a victim of DV need never be told that she will lose her kids [because if he does keeps beating her, then by default, he will be removed- the onus is on him not her]

SO is this what happens in practice, or is it still done the old way, where the abuser gets to stay in the family home while the woman flees to some temporary housing with the kids?

If that's the case, I'm delighted.
Links please.

my friend was told unless she left her dp and went into refuge, her ds would be taken away from her, i was referred to ss because u told someone about my dv issues, some of the women i met in the refuge were only there coz they were forced to by ss, some of the women still saw their partners

Will see if I can find it.

Doesn't it ring a bell for anyone else? There was a big thing about it here, what with the beermats and all!

this was brought into law i think last year

THat is shocking MRsDrOWen That is exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about

And the law ISNT mentioned is is exactly the type of thing that I would like to see enforced, and instead we have people protesting: " Oh, but oh but, we can't possibly target the abuser; Oh but you can'T throw someone out of their home; oh but the victim is the easy target
If there isn't a law to this effect, yet, then there should be

Hmmm I can't find it now. Maybe I'm wrong.

I find it strange though - is it really true that if eg the police turn up and the women in lying on the floor with a smashed in face and the man is holding a bloodstained weapon, that they can't arrest him/bring a prosecution?

I will keep looking for links!

GoblinCHild, I find it really worrying that you are in the field and you could not see a need for a law like this, but instead came out with lots of reasons why I was being ridiculous, and why the victim had to be the one who was responsible for the children's safety

Every time I write it, I find it absurd. The abuser-father is somehow not responsible for their children and yet the victim-mother is
I can'T get my head around it