FAMILY COURT ON TRIAL

FAMILY COURT ON TRIAL FOR UNJUSTLY TAKING CHILDREN FROM THEIR MOTHERS

Protest outside family court first Wednesday of every month.

12.30-1.30pm

London court  First Avenue Hse, 42-49 High Holborn, WC1V 6NP

Brighton court  1 Edward St, BN2 0JD

Mothers and other carers protest outside Holborn and Brighton family court against the increasing numbers of children taken into care, court secrecy, cuts to legal aid for family cases, forced adoptions, mothers’ and children’s poverty and destitution, sexism, racism and other bias. Join us.

 JOIN US TO DEMAND:

• An end to sexist judgements which deny the bond between mother and child, and downgrade the crimes of violent fathers.
• Fathers who are violent should not have unsupervised contact.
• An end to the secrecy of the family courts; there must be public scrutiny.
• Legal aid for all family court matters; no mother should have to represent herself.
• An end to institutional discrimination on grounds of income, race, nationality, disability, religious affiliation and/or occupation.
• An end to forced adoptions.
• Courts and social services must prioritise keeping children with their mother or other primary carer wherever possible. The state must support mothers doing their best for their children.

FACTS

• 80% of UK women are mothers. Women are primary carers in 90% of households.
• 28% of children live in poverty
• There are more children “in care” now than at any time since 1985
• Children from poor areas are 10 times more likely to be taken into care than those in rich areas
• Domestic abuse features in 70-90% of cases in the family courts yet less than 1% of child contact applications are refused – violent fathers who request contact nearly always get it.
• One in five children are now referred to children’s services yet the proportion of identified cases of abuse by parents has dropped from 24% to under 8%.
• Adoptions are at their highest point since complete data collection started: 90% of adoptions are without parental consent.

Suffer the little Children & their Mothers: A dossier on the unjust separation of children from their mothers is available at http://legalactionforwomen.net