OTTAWA (Staff) — The federal government was urged last week to change child custody laws to tilt the balance in favor of the mother.
The government-appointed Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women told Ottawa that existing laws often favor the father in custody battles.
It asked that the Divorce Act be changed to favor the “primary caregiver” in such cases.
It suggested that the presumption a child will automatically benefit from easy access to both parents be removed, so that courts do not go out of their way to make sure fathers accused of abuse have access.
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It also suggested that rules be tightened to reduce the chance a child will have to spend unsupervised time with an abusive or violent parent and that women not be penalized if they oppose giving the child access to a father accused of being violent or abusive.
Mediation shouldn’t be mandatory
Mediation services in family breakups should not be a mandatory part of the legal system because women often are not involved as equal partners in the mediation, the council said.
Its recommendations to the government were based on the presumption that the existing legal and court system often discriminates against women by looking at their sexual habits, sexual preference or psychiatric situation as a benchmark for whether they are fit mothers.
The council said that in 1990, there were almost 50,000 child custody cases in Canada.
Defaulting on payments a problem
It complained that while “fathers’ rights” groups have made father access an issue, a greater problem is men who default on their support payments or abusive men who win access to their children.
The council said many judges hold sexual or racial stereotypes when deciding custody cases; judges also believe many women falsely raise the issue of abuse and are biased in the belief that access to two parents after a marriage breakup is always better than to only one.
The council wants to remove the “subjective and arbitrary” aspect of existing law that allows a judge to decide a lesbian or sexually-active women is not fit to have custody of a child.
