CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY GROUPS CONDEMN DHHS ACCESS VISITATION FUNDING FOR FATHER'S INITIATIVE, part one

I have come across a jewel that provides some background to my previous post. The following press release was written by Victoria Pierce in 1998 (emphasis mine):

Do Children Really Need Federally Funded Access Visitation?

As a researcher and volunteer court advocate for abused children and battered women in domestic violence custody cases, I am writing to protest federal money being allocated to the Fathers Initiative, or at the very least, request matching funds for the much beleaguered Mother's Initiative. Presently,abusive men are winning custody of their children in over 70% of contested custody cases. Statistics show that abusers are more likely to continue the abuse by seeking custody and using the courts to control and intimidate their wives and children.

The following policy statement on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Fatherhood Initiative website is of great concern to me and many of thebattered, custodial and non-custodial women I work with:

"Helping Mothers to Support Fathers: Some program reviews and research studies have indicated that impediments to involving fathers include the attitude and resistance of mothers. The Work Group will develop strategies for informing mothers as well as fathers about the importance of working together as parents for the well-being of their children and to help mothers understand the positive effect that paternal involvement has on children's growth and development."

This policy allows abusive fathers continued contact with battered women and abused children, and funds their efforts to do so. I know of no women's groups receiving matching federal money to combat the Father's Initiative to destroy us. Many battered women literally have to run and hide with their children in order to save their lives, and in some instances keep their children from being raped by these dads.

Many of the members of the Father's Rights groups, i.e., CRC, FAPT, etc. are only looking for ways to get out of paying child support by aggressively lobbying our State Capitols for Presumptive Joint Custody legislation; however, a minority of them are pedophiles and child predators who use our judicial system to silence their children's outcries of sexual molestation by gaining sole custody and avoiding criminal prosecution.

Recently, in Atlanta, three women involved in child sexual abuse custody cases, contemplated running with Faye Yager's Children of the Underground, because they had or were about to exhaust all legal remedies to protect their children from their rapists. Because of my participation in these cases, I had the dubious distinction of working with Yager for a few months on two of the three cases, and am currently a federal witness in several suits involving Howard and Faye Yager, Children of the Underground and a judiciously corrupt legal system that exploits abused women and children. The Father's Rights groups, who so aggressively and maliciously fought with their unrelenting national initiative to manipulate the courts in Atlanta and across this country have created an international humiliation involving their's and the Underground's unscrupulous tactics and greed to take precedence over the best interests of children.

The websites of CRC (Childrens Rights Council), FAPT (Fathers Are Parents Too) and various other Fathers' Rights organizations proudly claim to be recipients of federal grants through the Department of Health and Human Services' Fatherhood Initiative. Many of the men in these groups are pedophiles, child sexual predators, and misogynists. See the following website for more information on the movers and shakers of these groups (if using e-mail, click the blue icon). This site is prepared by a Florida attorney, Liz Cates, who represents abused women in many custody cases.

FATHERS RIGHTS ACTIVISTS: IN THEIR OWN WORDS