FAMILIES APART REQUIRE EQUALITY (FARE)

19 Hornsey Road, Melrose Wellington, New Zealand; Tel 04 902 1303

Mobile 025 230 1667, e-mail taliesin@paradise.net.nz

5 June 2002

PRESS RELEASE

When will PM apologise?

"FARE wishes to know when the Prime Minister intends to apologies to the tens of thousands of New Zealand children who are deprived meaningful contact with their fathers because of government policies", FARE spokesperson Darryl Ward said today.

"If the Prime Minister considers it fit to apologise to the citizens of Samoa and to homosexuals for historical grievances, then it should immediately seek to redress the needless suffering it continues to inflict on our children".

"Our adversarial family court system sees 20,00 children legally abducted from one of their parents every years, usually their father, whilst only 3,000 New Zealand children lost their fathers during the entire second world war. This makes the Family Court New Zealand's leading child abductor, yet this is not reflected in the headlines."

"We look forward to the Prime Minister's apology, and repeat our call for the immediate implementation of shared parenting, which would put a stop to the practice of children having one of their parents stolen away from them, which forms the overwhelming majority of child abductions that take place in New Zealand", concluded Ward.

ends

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