In June of this year, the United Nations took up the issue of shielding women and children from violence during custody battles. While in the US these are state-by-state issues, it is comforting to see a world body speak to the seriousness of abuse and violence through coercive control and physical or sexual abuse.
Stateside, Kathleen Russell is the Executive Director of the Center for Judicial Excellence. Her team undertook an exhaustive analysis (from news stories and databases such as the National Gun Violence Archive) to arrive at a list of child homicides. Surprisingly, there is no governmental entity tasked with tracking this information and the Center’s work will now be shared with federal and state lawmakers.
In 2008, there were a total of 24 child homicide cases reported. By 2011 the figure had nearly quadrupled to 83. Last year Russell’s team uncovered 64 child homicides which was the most since 2016. In terms of the leading cause of death, gun violence led the list followed by blunt force, stabbing, and strangulation. In nearly three-fourths of all cases, fathers were accused.
While family courts cannot bear the brunt of the blame, the Center for Judicial Excellence did find that courts involved in these cases frequently miss the signs of trouble and end up placing children in harm’s way to either prioritize parental visitation or attempt to repair an irreparable situation.
Moving Forward
Reem Alsalem, the United Nations Special Rapporteur who brought the report to the previously mentioned United Nations Human Rights Council, suggests this is a shared problem of the developed and developing world. Court workers and judges worldwide are not adequately trained on how to detect red flags. Moreover, this is not something that requires overly complex training to address. It starts with collecting good and reliable information from parents and others in the dispute and digging into the details.
Most of the suggested fixes are ideas as opposed to practical tools. One of the most commonly cited is prioritizing children’s safety over a shared parenting regimen. This is clearly easier said than done. The same applies to statements like “better coordination and communication across agencies and organizations.” One tool that is being more frequently implemented is free legal counsel for low-income households. Free legal counsel is common but specialized counsel in custody proceedings is desperately needed.
Maryland legislation now requires judges presiding over abuse cases to complete a minimum of 20 hours of domestic violence and child abuse training. The woman who spearheaded the legislation was a mother whose 15-month-old son was murdered by her father. A judge had concluded that the father had planned to kill his son when it was discovered he had taken out $500,000 plus in life insurance policies. Despite the mother’s objections, the father was granted unsupervised visits, and weeks later during an unsupervised visit the child was hospitalized and declared dead the next day.
