Good article about women who are victims of domestic violence, losing their children because the state victimizes them again.

[deepwatersolo]

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/20/separate-mother-child-victims-domestic-abuse?CMP=share_btn_tw

This means being taken away from their mothers – typically the victim in all this. But she’s not usually the one being violent. Most often, it’s the children’s father or stepfather who is. As rates of reported domestic abuse soar – incidents sufficiently serious to be recorded by police as crimes rose 5% between 2016 and 2017, according to the Office for National Statistics – it’s estimated by the charity Safe Lives that 130,000 children live in households with “high‑risk” domestic abuse. So why are victims investigated by social services, rather than the perpetrators who cause such physical and mental harm?
Why is domestic abuse still not taken seriously in UK courts?
Read more

Too often victims’ experience is a grotesque indictment of the child protection system that is failing both women and children. A clinical psychologist tells me of one mother who survived a shockingly violent relationship despite getting little support from any service that might have been expected to help. Instead of support and concern for her safety, she lost her children to adoption. In an extraordinary twist, this woman now has a criminal conviction for failing to protect her children, while her abuser remains free.

This is one of the problems Lisa Muggeridge went on about in her videos, regarding the crisis of the system around family courts. Good to see these problems getting some recognition in the mainstream press for once.

But the real issue isn’t that she can’t protect her children from a violent abuser, but that she’s being left to do so alone, then blamed for her inability to achieve the impossible. This illogical and sexist attitude to protecting children from domestic abusers must stop.

This stood out to me, along with the part about the closure of services that women could turn to for help. It's another example of women and children being more affected by austerity.

This is something that particularly affects some specific communities- eg Traveller, gypsy and Roma families. It's shocking and sad. There is some good work being done here www.nationaldomesticviolencehelpline.org.uk/if-you-are-a-woman-experiencing-domestic-violence.aspx

I watched a documentary about a charity called Pause which works with women who have had multiple babies removed at birth by social services, or who have had children removed and are now pregnant again.

It was striking how many women had had their children taken into care because they couldn't protect them from domestic violence from their partners - in many cases because they had nowhere to go because services had closed down thanks to austerity, were in denial about what was happening, had severe complex needs of their own, or were so abused themselves that they were unable to act. The worst were the ones where the police came again and again to remove a violent partner and still the women took their partners back (or even picked him up from the police station) knowing their kids were at risk of being taken into care. It was tragic but it made me so happy that a charity was focusing on these women and their needs. I have a direct debit to them now. www.pause.org.uk

This is something that particularly affects some specific communities- eg Traveller, gypsy and Roma families

Maybe historically these communities specifically, which have high rates of DV.

But now? This lack of protection for women is likely to cover all working class women in households claiming UC - that's one in five households in the country.

One of the very reasons we need a class analysis, not this pomo shite.

But the real issue isn’t that she can’t protect her children from a violent abuser, but that she’s being left to do so alone, then blamed for her inability to achieve the impossible.

This is actual intersectionality. Systems that do not work together and therefore oppress women from certain demographics.

The Children Act is a lovely piece of legislation. But for it to be properly effective, other systems must take it into account. Including our housing system, our benefits system and all the rest of it.

I agree that there is a lack of support for women who want to leave. This is shocking and wrong.

However many women do not want to leave , as a PP says. Many women choose to return to live with a violent man and they have that right, even though other might disagree with their choice.

The woman’s has a right to live with who she wants.

The child has a right to live free of violence.

How do the balance these ?

Yes of course in an ideal world, men would not be violent . But until that utopia arrives, what should we ( as a society ) do? There is little public support to put resources into supporting women and ZERO public support for severely punishing the perpetrators .

We can’t leave children where they are until they are brain injured or killed.

I think there is some understanding of what it is like living with a violent coercive partner, when they are telling you it is your fault, no-one else would have you, or that they would get custody of their children. some women stay to prevent the child being alone with a violent parent on contact, some are so beaten down by the abuse that they are too scared of something different, some are so scared of losing their children because the partner has threatened to kill them if they ever leave. then there is the no where to live conundrum and not being able to support onesself as work options have been taken away...

it is not always chosing to go back, sometimes it is that they have been so abused they can not see any different. It takes a while for the thought that they can leave, they can make a go of it, they don't have to stay and that there are other options.

I understand that it’s not a “free choice” in that there are many outside influences and that women have infinite resources.

There’s all the practical issues, plus the lifetime of being taught that a women’s only goal in life is to get a man and keep him. Pressure from family to make it work. And not wanting your children to come from a “ broken home “. And of course the codependency that women think is love.

I agree, women need a HUGH amount of support to leave and stay away.

I know it’s not a free choice made in a vacuum but it still is a choice.

When women don’t want to leave or leave and go back - what do we do? Leave the children at risk ? Or remove them to a diffent type of risk?

As a society WE have made a choice. We have decided that Men should have the right to abuse their women and children , pretty much with impunity. We don’t like seeing dead children. Therefore it must be the woman’s fault. Someone must be to blame.

We will have to go on removing the children to care( and punishing the women AND the children ) unless we decide to punish the Men.

This is actual intersectionality. Systems that do not work together and therefore oppress women from certain demographics.

And yes on the excellence that was the intention behind The Children's Act that was completely undermined by all of the austerity-driven failures to construct the framework needed to make it work.

We have decided that Men should have the right to abuse their women and children , pretty much with impunity. We don’t like seeing dead children. Therefore it must be the woman’s fault. Someone must be to blame.

There is so much scholarship in this area already - and it was added to with the recent work on conducive contexts but it seems there is genuinely no will to reduce men's impunity and create consequences for them for their pattern of abuse.

With respect to violence against women and girls one of the earliest insights from feminist research was the challenge the notion of the home/family as a safe place, a ‘haven in a heartless world’. The family turned out to be an extremely unsafe space for women and children.

Feminists have long noted that certain contexts are conducive to VAW: the family; institutions; conflict and transition; public space and more recently online environments. What is less common is exploration, at a theoretical level, of what connects them, what makes these spaces ones in which men are enabled to abuse women and girls.
...
The analysis of the family focused on the convergence of layers of power and authority – as fathers and heads of households – which accorded men status and an expectation of control over women and children. An expectation that, combined with the notion of the family as a private space, which theoretically, should be beyond the reach of the State. Thus we have institutionalised power and authority that creates a sense of entitlement, to which there was, and arguably still is, limited external challenge.

discoversociety.org/2016/03/01/theorising-violence-against-women-and-girls/

As a society WE have made a choice. We have decided that Men should have the right to abuse their women and children , pretty much with impunity. We don’t like seeing dead children. Therefore it must be the woman’s fault.

It very much looks like it. Apparently, people don't even get free representation when it comes to family court hearings any more. So, in case you have, say, father and mother pitted against one another, the one who can afford representation, private expert reports has much better cards. And who will usually have the money? (And if it is basically parents against state - poor/working class families have way worse cards than the middle class.)

And yes on the excellence that was the intention behind The Children's Act that was completely undermined by all of the austerity-driven failures to construct the framework needed to make it work.

Exactly. If only intersectionality as a framework hadn't been hijacked and bastardised, we might have some systems analysis to move us on by now.

some women stay to prevent the child being alone with a violent parent on contact This was me. I waited until my child was old enough to be allowed to make their own choice and protected as best I could

Unfortunately courts go out of their way to ensure men have contact and abusive men use the court system to assist in their abuse

I wish it wasn't this way

There are multiple reasons why women choose to ally themselves with abusive men, even against the best interests of themselves and their own children.

It's still the male violence that's the fundamental problem here.

I haven't checked Shelter's figures. There is a wretched report that highlights the housing insecurity that exacerbates the problem for women looking to escape DV yet retain their children:

At least 320,000 people are homeless in Britain, according to research by the housing charity Shelter.
...
The estimate suggests that nationally one in 200 people are homeless.
...
Newham in east London is ranked as England’s number one homelessness hotspot, with at least one in every 24 people in housing insecurity. More than 14,500 people were in temporary accommodation in the borough, and 76 were sleeping rough.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/22/at-least-320000-homeless-people-in-britain-says-shelter

FILIA has been in HoL's today, talking about violence against women and girls.

“when women subjected to domestic abuse reach the point of escaping; with what they can carry..children in tow, Women’s Aid quote that 60% are refused a place due to lack of space..I’d suggest that fits the very definition of torture.” Sally Jackson

twitter.com/FiLiA_charity/status/1065610898293907456

That is horrific arranfan!

This crosses all class and cultural lines. Even if women have the means to leave an abusive relationship, the default is visitation with the abuser. Now the child is in the house without the mother to serve as a buffer.

There needs to be a way to document abuse and restrict custody. It shouldn’t take multiple arrests to justify protecting a child.

I think I was a bit unclear above. If I understand you right, I think you're talking about structuralism LangCleg?

Clearly the issue is to do with structural oppression. What I meant was that Traveller families are one example of how people with intersecting identities can be exponentially more vulnerable to this sort of miscarriage of justice.

Intersectionality is not necessarily pomo, it's Kimberle Crenshaw (Black feminism), as far as I understand it.

Anyway, it's really sad.

No, intersectionality is a way for structures to ignore the oppressed while at the same time pretending they are tackling oppression.

The example Kimberle Crenshaw gave is of a company that only employed white women in their office.
They employed white women in their office so they were able to argue that they were not sexist, and black men on their assembly line so they were able to say they were not racist.

The black women who could not work in their office lost their case. They are at an intersection between legislation to outlaw sexism and racism, and are effectively protected by neither.

I don't recognise your characterisation of intersectionality and I don't understand the problem with it. I find it to be a very useful context to think about people's lives and needs. Nothing I've read about it sounds like what you're saying. Please explain.

QED