Violence Against Women Panel Commits Violence Against Democracy

April 16, 2004

WASHINGTON, DC | APRIL 15, 2004 - American citizens were treated to rigged public policy formulation today, as the National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women began its 2-day meeting in Washington. The federal panel is charged with advising the government under the Violence Against Women Act.

The meeting was scheduled to last a total of 13 hours. Of that time, the panel reserved 30 minutes for the public to express its concerns, which was scheduled from 11:30 am to 12:00 noon. In fact, the public comments began at 11:40, in part because panel member Judge Abbi Silver spent part of the public comment time announcing her pregnancy and birthday, to vigorous applause from other panel members. After this the moderator announced with evident regret that the panel was required to allow citizens some input into the process.

Members of the public were then told they would be given 3-4 minutes each to voice their concerns. The first speaker, Karen Baker, Director of National Sexual Violence Resource Center, spoke without interruption for 5-1/2 minutes. I spoke next and was cut off promptly at 4 minutes. Other speakers (in order) were Stanley Green of Stop Abuse for Everyone (SAFE), Jan Brown of the Domestic Violence Helpline for Men, David Burroughs, Chair of the Forum for Equity and Fairness in Family Issues, Lee Newman, Executive Director of Violence Intervention Program (New Hampshire chapter of SAFE). All speakers except Ms. Baker had their presentations punctuated with warnings of the time limit from the moderator ("50 seconds…, 30 seconds…") and held to 4 minutes or less. When one scheduled citizen failed to show up, Mr. Burroughs volunteered to submit additional testimony. Though the session was still well below the scheduled 30 minutes in length, his request was denied, and the panel adjourned for lunch.

Following past meetings, the Committee has made available a transcript of public comments after about 6-8 months.

The NAC is already a rigged process, comprised of a membership heavily weighted with domestic violence professionals.

The NAC is officially co-chaired by Attorney General John Ashcroft and Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson. Citizens wishing to express their views on this travesty of the democratic process and contempt for the views of American citizens can write to these officials or their member of Congress:

Office of the Attorney General

U.S. Department of Justice

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, DC 20530-0001

202-353-1555

AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201
Telephone: 202-619-0257
Toll Free: 1-877-696-6775

tommy.thompson@nih.hhs.gov

Testimony of Stephen Baskerville, President

American Coalition for Fathers and Children

to the

National Advisory Committee on Violence Against Women

April 15, 2004

The American Coalition for Fathers and Children is America's premier shared-parenting organization. We represent about 45,000 members through our affiliate organizations. Indirectly, our constituency consists of some 15 million non-custodial parents and their families.

Our concern is to ensure that children receive the benefits of a stable, two-parent home and when this is not possible to see that they have the advantages of being raised by both a mother and a father.

Research shows that domestic violence and child abuse are overwhelmingly phenomena not of married, intact families but of separated and separating families, and that the safest place for women and children is an intact, two-parent home. [Callie Marie Rennison and Sarah Welchans, Intimate Partner Violence (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, May 2000, NCJ 178247), p. 5; Jean Bethke Elshtain, "The Lost Children," in Cynthia R. Daniels (ed.), Lost Fathers: The Politics of Fatherlessness in America (New York: St. Martin’s, 1998), p. 129; Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family, "Issues and Dilemmas in Family Violence," Issue #4 (Washington, DC: n.d.]

In those relatively rare instances when domestic violence and child abuse occur within two-parent families, we recognize that extreme case will warrant the separation from an abusive parent. But again, we know that this is seldom the case.

What is more common, and what most concerns us, is where fabricated allegations of domestic violence and child abuse are used to break up families, to separate children from loving, innocent parents, and to bring the penal system to bear on those parents without due process of law. Abundant documentary evidence suggests that knowingly false accusations are routine in child custody cases and that they are seldom, if ever, punished. We also have documentary evidence that restraining orders are routinely issued not to punish criminal wrongdoing (which they cannot do) but for the express purpose of separating children from their parents to gain an advantage in custody disputes.

It is widely recognized that manipulating access to children and needlessly separating children from fit loving parents is itself a form of violence. False allegations are also recognized in most areas of the law as a criminal act. This is especially the case, and significantly endangers the safety of children, where false accusations are used to remove, not an abusive parent, but a protective parent.

You will no doubt hear statistics demonstrating that men and women perpetrate domestic violence in roughly equal numbers. But further, some facts of which you may be unaware:

• The overwhelming majority of restraining orders are issued against fathers.

• Yet fathers commit a tiny minority of child abuse and about half the domestic violence.

• The vast majority of child physical and sexual abuse is committed in single-parent homes, home usually where the father is not present. "Contrary to public perception, research shows that the most likely physical abuser of a young child will be that child’s mother, not a male in the household." [Patrick Fagan and Dorothy Hanks, The Child Abuse Crisis: The Disintegration of Marriage, Family, and the American Community (Washington, DC: Heritage Foundation "Backgrounder," 3 June 1997), p. 16.]

• The father is the parent most likely to be the protector of children. "The presence of the father . . . placed the child at lesser risk for child sexual abuse," according to David L. Rowland, Laurie S. Zabin, and Mark Emerson, in a study of low-income families. "The protective effect from the father's presence in most households was sufficiently strong to offset the risk incurred by the few paternal perpetrators." ["Household Risk and Child Sexual Abuse in a Low Income, Urban Sample of Women," Adolescent and Family Health, vol. 1, no. 1 (Winter 2000), pp. 29-39.]

• A British study found children are up to 33 times more likely to be abused when a live-in boyfriend or stepfather is present than in an intact family. [Robert Whelan, Broken Homes and Battered Children: A Study of the Relationship between Child Abuse and Family Type (London: Family Education Trust, 1993), p. 29.]

At a time when the Bush administration is proposing to spend $1.5 billion over 5 years to promote fatherhood and marriage for the benefit of children, other government agencies should not be promoting policies that are exacerbating the crisis if fatherless children.

We are especially concerned that domestic violence policy dangerously blurs the ancient distinction between sin and crime. We urge therefore that all forms of violent assault be treated with formal criminal charges and that those accused be given full due process protections.