28 August 2002

MEDIA RELEASE

Nothing to Celebrate on Fathers’ Day

“New Zealand children and fathers have nothing to celebrate on Fathers’ Day”, FARE spokesperson Darryl Ward said today.

“It indisputable that the best remedy for child abuse is to ensure that a child has a right to love and care from both of its natural parents. Children who are denied a meaningful relationship with one of their parents, as happens every day in the Family Court, are at up to 40 times greater risk of being subject to abuse as those who retain a proper relationship with both their mother and father.”

“Yet every year our adversarial Family Court system sees approximately 20,000 children legally abducted from one of their parents, usually their father. By encouraging sole custody outcomes, the Family Court has helped to ensure that one third of New Zealand children now live in sole parent households.”

“By comparison, 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, and for this reason alone, Fathers’ Day is a national day of shame.”

“Even when a child has retained his or her right to a meaningful relationship with Dad, the Court will rarely enforce its own access orders, making them not worth the paper they are written on. Yet the government will hound a man to the end of the earth to collect arbitrarily calculated child support payments, which in practice are little more than a form of spousal maintenance.”

“Until it is recognised by this government that the role of father is more than just being a walking wallet, then the 600,000 New Zealand children and fathers who are affected by our disastrous family law system will never have anything to celebrate on Fathers’ Day”, concluded Ward.

ends

(All enquiries to 025 – 230 1667)

FAMILIES APART REQUIRE EQUALITY (FARE) 19 Hornsey Road, Melrose Wellington, New Zealand; Tel 04 389 4222 Mobile 021 388 324, E-Mail tichbon@hotmail.com

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