Fathers Rights Protection System

An epidemic has been slowly gathering momentum for the last many decades. Over the last two centuries, the world has undergone such changes that our forefathers couldn't even imagine of. Due to globalization, the world is becoming increasingly smaller as barriers break between different cultures. Science and technology has surpassed the wildest limits of human imagination. However, man has to pay a very dear price for such glory. Human relationships, which are the basis of all existence, are breaking down.

There are so many broken relationships compared to the successful ones. The crowds of disillusioned couples outside the counselor's office are increasing daily. There are more and more cases of infidelity, and an infinite number of other emotional problems that are cropping up in the shared lives of men and women today. What is it that is going wrong? Divorce are on the rise, and the custody battles seem to be getting more and more abusive and complicated as time passes. Obviously there are a lot of factors at work behind such emotional and domestic tragedies.

The statistics of divorce rates are growing increasingly frightening. Nowadays all couples seem to be taking the easy route out. No one seems to be bothered about any other option excepting divorce. Man is a social animal and he consciously or unconsciously seeks to emulate society around him. Divorce seems to have become a modern day trend, where everyone seems to be adhering to the herd mentality at large. When people see everyone around them using divorce as the only way out, at the back of their mind they keep it as an option too.

This is a psychological phenomenon of close ended thinking. Our thinking processes become absolutely stationary and no other options but the one present in front of our eyes exist. We do not even bother to reflect and look for other solutions before calling up our lawyers to draw up divorce papers. Parting ways seem to be the only thing to do today. People are getting divorces for the pettiest of reasons, and that too just because everyone is too selfish and egoistic to make the first move in working things out.

The social and the psychological side effects of divorce are immense. Not only are the two people involved, it becomes worse if there are children as well. These kids grow up watching their parents fight out bitter battles in the divorce courts, slinging bitter abuses and allegations at each other. These children with such a traumatic background grow up to be repressed individuals with a variety of social, mental and physical problems. Also it sets a trend for the future generations to come, for whom divorces are the best options available. It takes only a minor misunderstanding or a petty fight for a couple to start off divorce proceedings. True commitment doesn't let go so easily. Divorce is an alarming phenomenon that has arrived as emotional baggage in the advanced lifestyle of modern man.

The world has begun to grow extremely selfish these days. People do not think twice before contriving ways and means to destroy their elements of hate. Even their loved ones are not spared in this game of hate where they are used as pawns to win against enemies. It is more upsetting to see this being enacted between separated couples who blame each other for almost everything to let out their anger, frustration and hatred.

To top it all, this trend of false allegations have made their presence felt in chaotic divorce proceedings. The children are brought into the whole process of dirty and unfair mind games played between parents as centerpieces. False allegations flung at both sides take ugly turns; for example with mothers hurling allegations of sexual abuse by the fathers towards the child or husbands accusing wives of infidelity. Strangely enough, whether these allegations are right or wrong are difficult to prove and to do so through legal methods take months and often years.

There are certain developments in judicial history that led to these eventualities. False allegations were encouraged after the passing of the Mondale Act of 1974 or the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). This Act was designed with the intention of investigation and subsequent validation of child abuse claims. People looking for revenge were eager to use this as a tool to hurl false allegations at each other. Now, this does not mean to imply, that, during divorce proceedings all claims made a re deliberately untrue.

It is usually the men who are more often at the receiving end of such false allegations, though that is not to say that the women do not get falsely accused at times. Other than sexual abuse, other allegations include drug abuse, domestic violence and so on. Under the provisions of the Act, CPS workers are responsible for investigating such claims to find out the element of truth behind such charges. Often in cases of sexual abuse as leveled against a male parent, these workers are subjected to severe pressure to indict the accused just to be on the safe side of both law and society. Thus to protect their jobs, workers often validate false claims as well.

Two syndromes at work in the system of false allegations is PAS (Parental Alienation Syndrome) and Sexual Allegations In Divorce (SAID). In the former, one parent tries to deliberately or at times unintentionally alienate a child from the other parent. The latter form of false allegations involves the leveling of sexual allegations against the parent, usually the father. Sadly, men have to face the music more than women do in such cases. Since sexual crime is regarded as a heinous act, fathers are usually subject to extreme social ostracisation.

One of the saddest points in a divorce is having to battle over child custody. That is, parents fighting over who gets the lion's share of the child's attention and affection? Living in a time when every second couple we know is getting divorced, these custody battles are usually a very familiar sight. These battles revolve around visiting rights, who gets to stay with the child and who becomes the visitor and so on. It is usually a very distressing deal for the parent who loses the battle and has to adopt the role of an occasional passer by in the life of his own child. It has been seen however, that over time, the concept of child custody, or rather, certain ideas about it have undergone a sea change.

As with most other issues, even the concept of child custody had a patriarchal bias till about the middle of the nineteenth century. Fathers were universally regarded as the sole parent figure who could take proper care of their children. This was probably because women were yet to emerge fully into the field of being "single mothers". However, with the increasing intensity of the female emancipation movements, things took a different turn around the early years of the 2oth century. By then, mothers slowly began to be recognized as the more responsible and caring parent, as the fathers spent more and more time outside the household, working for their livelihoods. However, things took a negative turn once again.

Gradually, fathers began to be sidelined when the question of the well being of children arose and now, in a sort of reversal of roles, mothers became the ideal parent as far as safety, protection and emotional security of the child was concerned. However, this too became problematic with indignant fathers claiming that child custody should not be decided on the basis of the gender of the parent but that the characters and capabilities of each parent must be taken into account.

Post the Great War things took a different turn altogether. The arguments considering gender bias were finally paid heed to. Until then, custody had been a completely gender based issue. But now for the first time, the concept of joint custody came into being. Both parents would have an equal share in the lives of their children. There are two types of custody that is legal custody where parents have an equal right to take decisions concerning their children. The second is physical custody where the children divide their time equally between both parents.

However, courts obviously favor the concept of the former than the latter which involves a lot more hassle. Unfortunately, however, when it comes to custody, the male parent is still stuck with an unfair deal more often than not. The courts still favor women over men in custody battles though it is a lot more subtle than before. The concept of joint custody just indicates a shift in a trend which had been established in society for a long time now. As a result, men now are resorting to various legal routes to ensure their rights of custody.