With the increased divorce rate in conjunction with changing roles within families,fathers feel they often get the short end of the deal in divorce settlements. To combat this, the Fathers’ Rights Movement has been born.The Fathers’ rights movement has been characterized as a civil rights movement, whose members are primarily interested in issues affecting fathers and children related to family law, including child custody and child support sometimes after divorce.

The movement’s primary focus has been to campaign for formal legal rights for fathers, and sometimes for children, including changes to family law related to child custody, support and maintenance, abuse and violence as well as the perceived inequities in the family court system themselves. Members of the fathers’ rights movement criticize the win or lose adversarial system currently used in most Western countries to determine divorce and child custody issues, and define “winning custody” not as the right to parent one’s children, but as the power to prevent someone else from parenting his children with the help of the government.

They state that family courts are biased against fathers, and in favor of mothers, sole custody, and geographical/one-parent stability, in making custody decisions. They point to studies noting that women initiate at least two-thirds of divorce, with the claim that “automatic custody” for mothers is one of the reasons for this. Members of the fathers’ rights movement state that parents are ordered to pay fees for services demanded by the court, and claim that those working within the court system have a ”vested interest in separating children from their parents.”

Members of the fathers’ rights movement propose the restoration and enforcement of the traditional rights of parents to the care, custody and companionship of their children. Critics of the fathers’ rights movement note research that fathers are accorded considerable significance in custody decisions and are not discriminated against. Some critics also state that based on significant research, family courts discriminate against mothers as a result of gender bias and influence from the fathers’ rights movement.

Tags: Divorce, Family Law, Father's Right

This entry was posted on October 9, 2009 at 4:34 am and is filed under Family Law. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.