Give fathers a better deal, demand demonstrators

THE Association for Fathers of Separated Families staged a demo in Palma to publicly condemn the “favouritism” shown by the Courts on a number of occasions to the mothers of their children. The fathers say that when it comes to the custody of their children, judges have often opted to award it to the mother without considering the wellbeing of the youngsters. As an example, they highlighted a case that had arisen in Palma where a six-year-old girl was given over into the care of her mother even though there was evidence of physical harm having being done to the child. The Association's vice-president, Jorge Skibinsky, described the Palma court case in more detail.
He said that the judge in question, having decided to award custody of the child to the mother, limited himself to giving her a warning that if the occasion of physical harm was repeated (referring to medical evidence from the children's section of Son Dureta hospital), she would have to understand that her desire to correct the behaviour of her daughter will have gone beyond acceptable limits. “If such damage were to have been done to a woman by her husband, this would have been sufficient for a restraining order to be placed on the man. And here we
Fathers claim courts show favouritism when awarding custody see that in spite of the physical harm being done to the child, the mother is awarded the custody of her daughter!” Fathers taking part in the demonstration carried banners with slogans in support of equal treatment of sexes when it came to court orders for separated families. Others demanded respect for the rights of fathers.
According to the Association spokesman, 80 percent of children coming from families who were separated due to disputes between their parents suffer as a result of being witness to discord in the home. In earlier protests to draw attention to their grievances, the fathers have donned Spiderman costumes and climbed on to rooftops.