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Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts
Showing posts with label human rights. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

NATIONAL FATHERS DAY RALLY

NATIONAL FATHERS DAY RALLY


We the members of CRISP have organized a “NATIONAL FATHERS DAY RALLY” on 19th June 2010, to stop the creation of a fatherless society which coincides with fathers day which is celebrated throughout the world to recognize and to honor the fathers for everything they are doing for the children& express gratitude for their love, care and protection to their children.

Details of the function:
Time : 10:00 AM to 1.30 PM
Venue : Mahatma Gandhi Statue, MG Road, Bangalore.

CRISP is an NGO formed in 2008 at Bangalore by people who recognized the serious effects of Parental Alienation of children due to single parenting in divorce/separation. Now we have chapters throughout the country. CRISP speaks up for the Rights of Children to remain connected with and enjoy the love of both the natural parents being divorced or separated. Our aims and objectives are based on research findings. Our members come from all walks of life, like software engineers, doctors, teachers, businessmen, social workers, etc. which includes women and senior citizens. All family roles like grandparents, fathers, mothers, etc., are being represented. CRISP has charted a Pro-Family agenda to promote family harmony in our society.
Parental Alienation: Psychological Effects on the Child

Parental alienation occurs when one parent estranges the children from the other parent for personal vendetta. Children are brainwashed (used as pawns in divorce/ separation) by the dominant parent against the non-custodial parent (usually fathers). This brings a lot of mental distress & trauma to the child and the alienated parent and is particularly damaging to the child’s psychology and is Child Abuse. Extensive psychological studies over decades collectively called “The Spectrum of Parental Alienation Syndrome1” describe the detrimental effects on the child. In western countries, mainly U.S and Europe, organizations (including medical, judicial & NGOs) have gone into the depths of this and are trying hard to preserve families and save children. Unfortunately, our own country which once prided possessing “family values” now needs to learn basic lessons from the west. Its a well known fact that neglected children and children from broken families are more prone to take to crime. In India, NOT even a single such study/ research has been done. There is a serious need to commit to research and save children from this situation, which is completely being ignored. As a society, we are largely ignorant of the effects.

Indian legal system and society at large is still based on a patriarchal mindset which considers fathers incapable of nurturing children which is incorrect. Men are as capable as women to be caregivers and bring up children in a normal way. Even if the woman (mother) assumes that the man is not a good husband, it is out of place to say he is not also a good father for the children until there is strong evidence against the father. Thus, women (mothers) need to understand that her animosity for the husband & his family should be kept separate from the child’s need for his/her father and must share the children with their estranged husband in the best interest of their children. After all, the father if far better than strangers, servants, day-care and nannies!

Judicial & Governmental Apathy: Anti-Child, Anti-Father & Anti-Family

Divorce/ Separation is between spouses. Not child and parent. This is common sense. There is no law requiring a normal father to keep away from his child, in divorce/ separation proceedings. On the other hand, U.N’s Child Rights Convention (to which India also acceded about 20 years ago and then did nothing about) requires the state (of which the Judicial systems are a part) to ensure that
the child does not suffer separation! However, the way justice is administered, the child is separated from the father (mostly) for years! One has to “apply” for “visitation” that takes years to “grant” and even then for a paltry time. Innocent children suffer because parents are separating & fight for their egos! Our judicial mechanism has a deplorable understanding of child welfare based on biased and outdated social concepts. The father is a relegated to a mere “visitor”, eliminating involvement in the child’s life and just a “maintenance” paying ATM machine. It virtually condemns the child to an illegitimate. This is neither in the child’s nor the family’s interest and destroys the foundation for the future generation.

It’s a fact that even convicted criminals have better access to their children 2.That is the extent of judicial apathy towards children and good fathers in family courts!
Our Family Laws and Courts are not only functioning insensitively in an anti-child, anti-father and anti-family manner, but are also flouting U.N’s Child Rights Convention (CRC) and even the Constitution of India3. Child’s rights cannot be subordinated to anything!

The Indian judiciary would do well to educate itself, provide training to judges and inculcate good international practices in the family law systems. The judiciary must become more accountable, transparent, improve the quality of justice and urgently implement extensive judicial reforms in right earnest, if it wishes to be a credible and potent justice system.

Why is a Family institution needed in the first place? Family is the most fundamental building block of society. It builds healthy human beings and healthy society. When family system breaks, its leads to serious social consequences4 and surge in crime rates. A main contributor to teenage pregnancies is broken families. It’s well known that children from broken homes are more prone to crime.

In US, it has been found after extensive scientific research that children from broken families without a father are:

14 times more likely to commit rape
5 times more likely to commit suicide
20 times more likely to end up in prison
10 times more likely to take drugs
32 times more likely to run away from home
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
9 times more likely to drop out of school
9 times more likely to end up in a state operated institution

From here it’s a short step to even more serious anti-national crimes like terrorism. Social upheaval/ instability are heavily exploited by anti-nationals and terrorists.

For a country like India, the breaking of the family system will be catastrophic to social well being and economic growth. Even today, the government spends crores on internal security. People are spending years in courts instead of engaging productively.

CRISP’s Achievements

Extensively campaigned to implement SHARED PARENTING. Currently engaging with the government on this. In-fact, National Commission for Protection Of Child Rights (NCPCR), Government of India appreciated CRISP for educating the society and legal fraternity on the significance of Shared Parenting.



1.CRISP has created a national forum and made representations to the Chief Justice of India,
WCD Ministry and Law Commission to make Shared Parenting mandatory.

2.Over 2500 members strong and growing. Now CRISP has 7 chapters across the nation.

3.Mothers who have been deprived of child custody are also members of CRISP.

4.Some reputed women’s organizations are supporting CRISP’s efforts.

5.Engaging with leading medical professionals to provide quality counseling. This is to prevent
suicides of deprived and abused fathers like Syed Makhdoom who committed suicide and whose
child is now fatherless.

6.CRISP has conducted several workshops, seminars and press meets pertaining to children issues
and sensitized the society and successfully spread the message of shared parenting.

7.Many deprived parents have benefited from CRISP counseling and have successfully got orders
for weekends and 50% vacation custody of their children.

8.CRISP provides quality information through its website www.crisp-india.org. Thousands of victims
have made use of this information which is the first of its kind in the country.


CRISP’s Demands:

• Basic right of children to access both biological parents
• Implementation of UN’s Child Rights Convention and Hague’s Convention on Parental Child Abduction.
• Implement SHARED PARENTING / JOINT CUSTODY as a rule in separation and divorce cases.
• Setting up Special Guardian Courts in every major city
• Speedy and quality justice (within 3 months)
• Rational and Gender neutral Family Laws (including DV Act)
• Create a separate Child Welfare Ministry at the National Level and separate from WCD Ministry
• Laws against International Parental Child Abduction and Child Alienation
• Enroll organizations like NIMHANS to carry out research on Child Psychology of separated children. Laws to be framed based on scientific studies.
• Compulsory counseling to parent-litigants on Shared Parenting for child’s welfare.
• Ban child interviews of tender age children, who have not had adequate access with the noncustodial parent.
• Appoint psychologists/ child psychologists as mediators and to encourage shared parenting.
• Ban lawyers as mediators! They are suited for arbitration not mediation!
• Ban lawyers form Family Courts (implement the Family Court Act which discourages engaging lawyers).Encourage party in person after giving adequate counseling.
• Grant visitation rights to grand parents who want to have access to the grandchildren.
• Harsh Punishment for Child Abusers including non-compliance of court orders concerning child visitation.
• Punish people who misuse dowry & domestic violence act as a weapon to cut off the children from the father.
• Make the domestic violence act gender neutral and also to protect the child from domestic violence from even the mother.

We appeal & invite our media friends to kindly grace the occasion since media has a very important role in educating the society on this highly sensitive subject of children who constitute 40% of the population and not vote banks & ensure our children are saved from being fatherless since the divorce rates in the cities are escalating and in Bangalore alone there are over 15000 cases pending.

Speakers for the press conference are:
Kumar V Jahgirdar President CRISP
Anil Kumar President Save Indian Family (NGO)
Roshni Mathan Teacher and Woman’s Rights Activist
Jayanth T.K Legal Counselor

CRISP’s is supported by the following NGOs and organizations:
SAVE INDIAN FAMILY
SUMANGALI SEVA ASHRAMA
FAMILY HARMONY SOCIETY
PURE (Mysore)
AIMPF, AIDPF

SOURCE:
1. The American Bar Association initiated a 12 year study by Dr. Richard Gardner and subsequently
carried forward by many others.
2. Francis Cora lie Mullin vs. The Administrator, Union Territory of Delhi, (1981) 2 SCR 516
(Justice P.N Bhagwati) which struck down Rule 559A of the Punjab Prison’s manual and allowed
a detune to see his/her child twice a week.
3. 1978 AIR 597 MANEKA GANDHI vs. Union of India: Article 21 of the Constitution enshrines
the right to life and liberty which includes right to a dignified life, free from social stigma, freedom
of movement. Article 39(e) & (f) protects a child from abuse!
4. U.S Department of Justice, National Criminal Justice Reference Service
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pubalp2.htm#csus
http://www.ncjrs.gov/app/Search/Abstracts.aspx?id=206316

KUMAR V JAHGIRDAR
President CRISP
Childrens Rights Initiative For Shared Parenting (CRISP)
(Regd. NGO) www.crisp-india.org (email: kvjahgirdar@yahoo.com)
# 78, Osborne Road, (Near Lake Side Hospital), Bangalore - 42, India.
Helpline No: +91 80 25593848, Mobile No: +91 98452 64488.

More at Fathers Day Rally organised in Bangalore paper report  and Press release by Bhavya foundation

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Ignorance is NO Excuse: *NATIONAL* Fatherless Day Rally ***FRIDAY THE 13TH***

Ignorance is NO Excuse: *NATIONAL* Fatherless Day Rally ***FRIDAY THE 13TH***
Courtesy: http://tstory.blogspot.com/2008/06/national-fatherless-day-rally-friday.html and http://www.f4j.us/

This is from USA(Fathers for Justice: http://www.f4j.us/), and this is what I call an all-out Campaign, and this stuff is what we need to do in India too. The Music, the passion, the reach, soul stirring..... just soul stirring. Don't forget to see the video clip seen below, it will blow your mind if you are even remotely a DAD!:



********** Details*********

For more information on ***FRIDAY THE 13TH*** of June, two days before Fathers day, please visit www.f4j.us. Where Fathers, Mothers, GRANDparents and Children from all 50 states will be uniting at their State Capitols to demand a change in Family law. This is an EQUAL RIGHTS issue and OUR Children need, want and deserve to have BOTH fit parents as active participants in their lives. Those states participating are as follows: Alabama Alaska Arizona Arkansas California Colorado Connecticut Delaware Florida Georgia Hawaii Idaho Illinois Indiana Iowa Kansas Kentucky Louisiana Maine Maryland Massachusetts Michigan Minnesota Mississippi Missouri Montana Nebraska Nevada New Hampshire New Jersey New Mexico New York North Carolina North Dakota Ohio Oklahoma Oregon Pennsylvania Rhode Island South Carolina South Dakota Tennessee Texas Utah Vermont Virginia Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming and The United Kingdom. The Organizations promoting this event are: FAMILIES-4-JUSTICE, FATHERS-4-JUSTICE, UNITED CIVIL RIGHTS COUNCILS of AMERICA, AMERICAN COALITION FOR FATHERS and CHILDREN, A CHILD'S RIGHT and CHILDREN NEED BOTH PARENTS.
**************************

Go India Go, go get your Children......... show them who's the DAD.

See a related post: Indian Father's fight for Child rights- the CRISP(Child Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting) Dharna, Bangalore, India

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Human rights are not for men-Daily Mail Article

By Melanie Phillips. First published in the Daily Mail, June 19 2003.

The government’s war against men is now plumbing ever more astonishing depths. On Radio Four’s Today programme yesterday, the Home Secretary David Blunkett could scarcely wait to boast of new proposals to deal with domestic violence.

Such crimes are indeed a serious matter. But the Home Office not only continues to distort them as overwhelmingly caused by male aggression against innocent women and children, against all the evidence that this is not the case. It is now taking a giant step towards fundamental injustice.

Anyone truly concerned with civil liberties could not fail to have been appalled by Mr Blunkett’s comments. The problem was, he enthusiastically explained, that at present ‘you have to get someone through court’ before a domestic violence suspect can be restrained.

So his solution is to restrain them before they even get to court. In other words, he wants action taken against a man on the basis of an unproven allegation by a woman– made under the protection of anonymity, to boot. So much for this Home Secretary’s understanding of the presumption of innocence, the meaning of justice and the necessity for a trial of the facts.

Even worse, despite the fact that he has just given the women’s refuge movement extra millions in public funds, he thinks women should not have to move out when they claim they are being attacked. The men they are accusing should move out instead, pronto. So men will now be evicted from their homes simply on the basis of an accusation.

The way will thus be clear for a woman who has tired of her man to get the police to evict him, without the tedious irrelevance of having to ‘get someone through a court’.

These are proposals which are simply inimical to the rule of law. They also spectacularly miss the point.

True, some 150 people – the majority of whom are women -- are killed at home every year. But if we want to stop the appalling toll of domestic violence, we have to address the unstable relationships which are fuelling the phenomenon.

For unmarried partners present vastly more risks of physical abuse to both adults and children at home than do married couples. Transient relationships lead to more jealousy, insecurity and, in extreme cases, violence. Furthermore, unmarried individuals are far more likely to abuse a child in their care with whom they have no biological connection.

The Home Office itself has previously acknowledged that the dislocation arising from marital breakdown is a ‘key risk factor’ in domestic violence. Yet the government has encouraged the false belief that all relationships are equal in value.

While thus giving its blessing to domestic arrangements which give rise to violence between intimates, the government is choosing to pile the blame on men. For although it claims in passing that one in six men suffers from domestic violence, it says women are mainly their victims.

This is a wicked distortion of the facts. There is overwhelming evidence from dozens of international studies that women are as violent towards men as men are towards women. Women are indeed more likely to initiate violence. Even the Home Office – which persistently ignores this research -- reported some years back that equal numbers of men and women were initiating violence towards each other.

True, women get hurt more badly in such fights because men tend to be stronger. That is presumably why more women than men are killed in these disputes. But there is also much anecdotal evidence that many men are too ashamed to report their injuries.

The Home Office report reheats yet again a number of misleading old chestnuts. It says, for example, that one in four women suffers domestic violence. This is rot. It is a figure extrapolated from studies that don’t stand up to serious scrutiny – illustrating the dismal standards which characterise virtually all domestic violence research in this country, but which the Home Office not only slavishly relies upon but also funds.

Not only does the government distort the facts about violence between adults, but it ignores the role played by women in violence towards children. For all the evidence suggests that while men commit most child sexual abuse, women subject children to more neglect, physical injury and even murder.

An NSPCC study a few years ago revealed that mothers were the most frequent perpetrators of children’s physical injury, emotional abuse and neglect. This is hardly surprising since mothers generally have more contact with their children than anyone else.

In America, where trends are likely to be similar to Britain, the Department of Justice said that in 1999, three out of five maltreated children had been abused by their mothers. And in 2001, the US Department of Health and Human Services reported that 32.4% of child fatalities were committed by mothers, compared to 14.2% committed by fathers, 14% by non-parents and 25.1% by mothers and fathers acting together.

So the idea that men are responsible for the vast majority of domestic violence is simply untrue. Yet Mr Blunkett is urging women to make more such claims -- on the basis of which men are to be deprived of their homes, their children and their reputations.

These preposterous proposals are based on the extreme feminist belief -- which has captured the Home Office -- that all men are guilty. That’s why rape trials are now to be rigged, too, by weighting the burden of proof against the defendant. Many men are already victims of this egregious prejudice in the divorce courts, where unproven allegations against them are automatically believed and used to deprive them of contact with their children.

Clearly, some men are indeed guilty of violence against the women they live with or their children. But some men are guilty of other crimes, too. Yet this has not caused the government to tear up the elementary rules of justice in those cases. So why is domestic violence so different?

The answer is that men are being demonised as intrinsic rapists, wife beaters and child abusers as part of a broader agenda. It is nothing less than an aim to destroy the married family, cripple ‘male power’ by emasculating men’s role and undermine masculinity itself.

So men are given the impression they can no longer be breadwinners (unless they are separated from their children’s mother, in which case they will be pursued for money the length and breadth of the land).

Meanwhile, women are lured back into the workplace by a government fanatical in its feminist agenda. Only recently there was a report from the Women and Equality Unit which implied that it was wrong for women to stay at home with their children when they could be economically active.

At the same time, men are patronised as emotionally illiterate, and regarded as no more than walking wallets, sperm donors and mothers’ au pairs.

In fact, the biggest protection against domestic violence is marriage, the very institution the government is busy destroying. Domestic violence is far rarer within the stable and loving context that marriage affords than among cohabiting couples who are more prone to insecurity and jealousy.

Since the government’s approach is exposing hundreds of thousands of children to hugely increased risks of violence and abuse, Mr Blunkett’s pious assertion that he was ‘putting children first’ was enough to make one choke on the cornflakes.

By encouraging mass fatherlessness, this government is putting children last. These domestic violence proposals go even further: removing men not just from family life but from the protection of the law itself.

They are being turned into un-persons, excluded from the ambit of human rights (so much for the wretched Human Rights Act). And once again it is a male politician, in the emasculated Home Office, which is putting the boot into men.
Human rights are not for men
By Melanie Phillips. First published in the Daily Mail, June 19 2003.

The government’s war against men is now plumbing ever more astonishing depths. On Radio Four’s Today programme yesterday, the Home Secretary David Blunkett could scarcely wait to boast of new proposals to deal with domestic violence.

Such crimes are indeed a serious matter. But the Home Office not only continues to distort them as overwhelmingly caused by male aggression against innocent women and children, against all the evidence that this is not the case. It is now taking a giant step towards fundamental injustice.

Anyone truly concerned with civil liberties could not fail to have been appalled by Mr Blunkett’s comments. The problem was, he enthusiastically explained, that at present ‘you have to get someone through court’ before a domestic violence suspect can be restrained.

So his solution is to restrain them before they even get to court. In other words, he wants action taken against a man on the basis of an unproven allegation by a woman– made under the protection of anonymity, to boot. So much for this Home Secretary’s understanding of the presumption of innocence, the meaning of justice and the necessity for a trial of the facts.

Even worse, despite the fact that he has just given the women’s refuge movement extra millions in public funds, he thinks women should not have to move out when they claim they are being attacked. The men they are accusing should move out instead, pronto. So men will now be evicted from their homes simply on the basis of an accusation.

The way will thus be clear for a woman who has tired of her man to get the police to evict him, without the tedious irrelevance of having to ‘get someone through a court’.

These are proposals which are simply inimical to the rule of law. They also spectacularly miss the point.

True, some 150 people – the majority of whom are women -- are killed at home every year. But if we want to stop the appalling toll of domestic violence, we have to address the unstable relationships which are fuelling the phenomenon.

For unmarried partners present vastly more risks of physical abuse to both adults and children at home than do married couples. Transient relationships lead to more jealousy, insecurity and, in extreme cases, violence. Furthermore, unmarried individuals are far more likely to abuse a child in their care with whom they have no biological connection.

The Home Office itself has previously acknowledged that the dislocation arising from marital breakdown is a ‘key risk factor’ in domestic violence. Yet the government has encouraged the false belief that all relationships are equal in value.

While thus giving its blessing to domestic arrangements which give rise to violence between intimates, the government is choosing to pile the blame on men. For although it claims in passing that one in six men suffers from domestic violence, it says women are mainly their victims.

This is a wicked distortion of the facts. There is overwhelming evidence from dozens of international studies that women are as violent towards men as men are towards women. Women are indeed more likely to initiate violence. Even the Home Office – which persistently ignores this research -- reported some years back that equal numbers of men and women were initiating violence towards each other.

True, women get hurt more badly in such fights because men tend to be stronger. That is presumably why more women than men are killed in these disputes. But there is also much anecdotal evidence that many men are too ashamed to report their injuries.

The Home Office report reheats yet again a number of misleading old chestnuts. It says, for example, that one in four women suffers domestic violence. This is rot. It is a figure extrapolated from studies that don’t stand up to serious scrutiny – illustrating the dismal standards which characterise virtually all domestic violence research in this country, but which the Home Office not only slavishly relies upon but also funds.

Not only does the government distort the facts about violence between adults, but it ignores the role played by women in violence towards children. For all the evidence suggests that while men commit most child sexual abuse, women subject children to more neglect, physical injury and even murder.

An NSPCC study a few years ago revealed that mothers were the most frequent perpetrators of children’s physical injury, emotional abuse and neglect. This is hardly surprising since mothers generally have more contact with their children than anyone else.

In America, where trends are likely to be similar to Britain, the Department of Justice said that in 1999, three out of five maltreated children had been abused by their mothers. And in 2001, the US Department of Health and Human Services reported that 32.4% of child fatalities were committed by mothers, compared to 14.2% committed by fathers, 14% by non-parents and 25.1% by mothers and fathers acting together.

So the idea that men are responsible for the vast majority of domestic violence is simply untrue. Yet Mr Blunkett is urging women to make more such claims -- on the basis of which men are to be deprived of their homes, their children and their reputations.

These preposterous proposals are based on the extreme feminist belief -- which has captured the Home Office -- that all men are guilty. That’s why rape trials are now to be rigged, too, by weighting the burden of proof against the defendant. Many men are already victims of this egregious prejudice in the divorce courts, where unproven allegations against them are automatically believed and used to deprive them of contact with their children.

Clearly, some men are indeed guilty of violence against the women they live with or their children. But some men are guilty of other crimes, too. Yet this has not caused the government to tear up the elementary rules of justice in those cases. So why is domestic violence so different?

The answer is that men are being demonised as intrinsic rapists, wife beaters and child abusers as part of a broader agenda. It is nothing less than an aim to destroy the married family, cripple ‘male power’ by emasculating men’s role and undermine masculinity itself.

So men are given the impression they can no longer be breadwinners (unless they are separated from their children’s mother, in which case they will be pursued for money the length and breadth of the land).

Meanwhile, women are lured back into the workplace by a government fanatical in its feminist agenda. Only recently there was a report from the Women and Equality Unit which implied that it was wrong for women to stay at home with their children when they could be economically active.

At the same time, men are patronised as emotionally illiterate, and regarded as no more than walking wallets, sperm donors and mothers’ au pairs.

In fact, the biggest protection against domestic violence is marriage, the very institution the government is busy destroying. Domestic violence is far rarer within the stable and loving context that marriage affords than among cohabiting couples who are more prone to insecurity and jealousy.

Since the government’s approach is exposing hundreds of thousands of children to hugely increased risks of violence and abuse, Mr Blunkett’s pious assertion that he was ‘putting children first’ was enough to make one choke on the cornflakes.

By encouraging mass fatherlessness, this government is putting children last. These domestic violence proposals go even further: removing men not just from family life but from the protection of the law itself.

They are being turned into un-persons, excluded from the ambit of human rights (so much for the wretched Human Rights Act). And once again it is a male politician, in the emasculated Home Office, which is putting the boot into men.