No Way Out But One

November 1, 2012

Finally, the issue of child abusers being awarded custody in the family courts is gaining in public awareness, thanks to the recent film No Way Out But One, which just aired on the Documentary Channel on October 28, 2012.

There are hundreds if not thousands of protective parents around the world (mostly women) who have lost all or partial custody of their children in family courts when they complained that their former or divorcing spouse was physically or sexually abusing their children. This has been going on for years without widespread public knowledge. How can this be, you might ask? Isn’t the legal system here to protect the innocent? Don’t we all care about protecting children from abuse?

Call it misinformation. Call it inappropriate skepticism. Say that people perceive family court disputes as inappropriately drawn out custody battles based on parental selfishness where false allegations of abuse are often leveled by one parent against the other. Call it the big money made by custody evaluators hired by family courts in these cases. Whatever the real bottom-line reason, courts have often not been listening. Instead of protecting our children from abusers, our family courts have been giving abusers unfettered access to children.

One justification has been frequently used to allow for this phenomenon. This justification is called Parental Alienation Syndrome (“PAS”). Family courts have been discussing the terms PAS and alienation for years. Very recently, however, the American Psychiatric Association, after much consideration, decided not to include PAS in its upcoming revised version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).

While parental alienation can be a real concern in some families and can itself be a form of child maltreatment, alienation theories have been inappropriately used to force children to see abusive parents. If a parent points out that there is evidence of abuse, the court and custody evaluator perceives the allegations with skepticism, often leveling accusations that this parent is simply trying to alienate the children from the other parent. Courts have done this repeatedly even in the face of clear evidence of abuse. They then often take custody rights completely from the protective parent on the theory of alienation.

These theories have been so commonly used in this context that there are numerous nonprofit groups fighting for justice on this issue. Large numbers of protective parents participate in rallies to protect their children. Hearings have been help before legislative committees on these issues. Mothers have attempted to run away with their children to protect them from being forced to have unsupervised visitation time with a violent cruel abusive parent.

This new film from producers Garland Waller and Barry Nolan, made on a shoestring budget of funds raised from an angel investor and Kickstarter, has been widely screened. It poignantly tells the true story of Holly Collins, a protective mother who completely lost custody of her children to an abusive father, whose children were returning from visits with bruises and who had even cracked his own son’s skull. The family court’s unbelievable reaction to her attempts to protect her children forced the mother to take the children to the Netherlands, where she became the first American woman to be granted asylum. Years later, the United States came to pursue her on kidnapping charges.

Take a look at the film’s website: No Way Out But One.

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