Thursday, October 4, 2012

A maternal right to kidnap?

Somehow, I don't seem to recall any of the cases of fathers abducting their children and taking them across international borders being portrayed quite as favorably as this maternal kidnapper, who is quite clearly supposed to be the victim of the story:
Disturbing scenes showing four girls being dragged kicking and screaming on to a plane in Brisbane to be sent back to their Italian father caused outrage across Australia today.  The sisters, aged between nine and 15, were ordered by a judge in Australia to be returned to their father in Italy, despite the children’s wishes to stay in Queensland with their mother.

The girls’ mother, who was married to an Italian, had taken them to Australia from Italy for a holiday two years ago – and then kept them in the country. The Courier Mail newspaper reported that it had learned the mother of the girls clung in desperation to the rear of an Australian Federal Police car as it drove away with three of the sisters from a house where they had been staying.

She collapsed in the road sobbing at the end of what was described as a day of unfathomable anxiety and stress.

A bitter international fight ensued between the parents, resulting in an Australian judge ruling the sisters must be returned to their father.  For weeks the girls, who have joint Australian and Italian citizenship, had remained in hiding with their great-grandmother after a court ordered they should be returned to their father in Italy.
If you're a parent of either sex who claims to be concerned about the well-being of your children, you cannot kidnap them and attempt to forcibly keep them from their mother or their father.  The family courts are, for the most part, complete travesties with no regard for the rule of law, but it shouldn't take a law or a court to make it clear to everyone that children must not be removed from the geographic proximity of a parent by the state or the other parent without the first parent's permission.

The heavily emotional angle of this story strongly suggests mothers have some sort of implicit right to abduct and abscond with their children that somehow trumps the legal system.  How, one wonders, can that be rationally justified in a nominally equalitarian legal system?

29 comments:

Dorsey47 said...

Perhaps the quote you chose can inform about the misdirection toward injustice that lies behind this story. In the quote, there is no attempt of rational justification. Notice the emotive verbiage from the quote you chose: Disturbing, screaming,outrage,despite wishes, clung in desperation, collapsed sobbing,unfathomable anxiety and stress,bitter.

The quote drips of emotion devoid of logic. It is a heart writing an appeal to hearts. This is pathos in full force. This is pathos being used to mislead readers to hide an argument that is weak in logical appeal. Pathos is substituted for logic and reason in the nominally egalitarian legal system.

LL said...

You know, I am 42 years old, working at a tiny private company that may or may not have longevity until I reach retirement age and yet I stay here, with the house my kids have and continue to grow up in, working this job, instead of moving further away where there are better opportunities (especially in my field). Why? Because my children need their father and he needs them. It's as simple as that. Women like the one in the story infuriate me. They have NO RIGHT to not only alienate the children from their father, but to remove them from the country. That is horrible!!

Daniel said...

Maybe dingos ate the journalist's brains.

Giraffe said...

On the other hand, when the father knows he going to have his children taken away and get raped in court, I can understand the temptation to bolt.

Toby Temple said...

But look at the kids! They want to be with their mum! Don't you guys have a heart!

~sips coffee~

Feh said...

They're old enough not to have tantrums. Sounds to me like their mom put them up to it. In any event, who gives a crap if they don't like it? Minors have no say in the matter, and shouldn't have a say in the matter.

The One said...

Surprised the judge made that call. Is Australia not as far gone as America?

Unknown said...

All children automatically belong to the father. It was like that in the U.S. until the early 20th Century and we had a fraction of the problems we have today.

Mr Green Man said...

It looks like nobody in the comments section over there considered that, to save these children the trauma, the mother shouldn't have fled the country with them in the first place. Of course, no, they just say -- since she did that, Australia should white knight because that's what makes her happy.

DaveD said...

Cue the (usually false) accusations of physical, emotional or sexual abuse as an excuse for her actions in 3....2.....

DD

Shimshon said...

I'm not surprised that this kind of reaction is coming from daughters. I also wouldn't be surprised if the mother said some pretty horrific things about the father. I wonder how sons would react in the same situation.

Vaughan Williams said...

Children belong to their mother. That is affirmed in the Law of Moses. If a man leaves his masters house, the children stay behind with their slave-mother, who remains the property of the master. If you can't keep the wife in line, odds are good the children will turn out bad too. If the woman is truly frivolous, odds are she won't want complete custody, and within one year she'll give them over to the father completely anyway.

Vaughan Williams said...

Shared custody is not a Biblical divorce. Sharing custody, and alimony, mean the couple are still entangled. Instead of a clean, complete, Torah compliant Biblical break in the relationship.

Unknown said...

The Law of Moses is null and void, superseded by the superiority of Christianity.

Cail Corishev said...

the journalist's brains

That's an oxymoron, like military intelligence, or Swiss cheese.

tspoon said...

Unfortunately these types of cases are common in the antipodes, and generally receive similar treatment from both media and government departments. When a mother does it. In other instances, such as that of a female who married a Morrocan man and was dumbfounded to find she could not take the children and leave Morroco, New Zealands diplomatic service became involved in her effort to circumvent the Hague agreement that the country is a signatory of. Children as property of female, and male as indentured servant bereft of rights or identity is pretty much the legal situation in these parts.

Anonymous said...

It's rare for the father to win. I'll bet one U.S. dollar that if the mother had stayed in Italy and divorced the father, that she would get custody of the children, gotten a permanent visa eventually to work and stay and forced the father to pay child support like the rest of the West and First World Nations like South Korea, Japan, Austrailia, USA, Canada, New Zealand, Britain etc. It seems the mother screwed herself and her children too by not thinking this one through properly and acting accordingly.

doclove

Kyle In Japan said...

This sort of thing happens all the time in Japan. White guy marries J-chick, they move overseas, she takes her cute kids back to Japan when she gets tired of the guy, he never see his kids again.

Sarah said...

Here's a little monkey wrench thrown into the narrative: http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/rome-embassy-helped-girls-flee-to-australia/story-e6frea6u-1226488525352

Apparently, the Aussie government helped bring them over to Australia to begin with.

Also, note at the end of this story that the reports are the children were "They interacted with her, even giggling at times.

During the Singapore-Dubai leg of the marathon flight, the girls were subdued and talked with minders, watched movies and played games on the in-flight entertainment system."

You'd think traumatized children would't be giggling and playing games, but what do I know about Child Psychology?

Athor Pel said...

"Ted Walther said...

Children belong to their mother. That is affirmed in the Law of Moses. If a man leaves his masters house, the children stay behind with their slave-mother, who remains the property of the master. If you can't keep the wife in line, odds are good the children will turn out bad too. If the woman is truly frivolous, odds are she won't want complete custody, and within one year she'll give them over to the father completely anyway.
October 4, 2012 3:27 PM "



So you're trying to apply a rule written for slaves to free men and women. Yes? At least that's what it looks like you're trying to do.

Because if you are you're stupider than a box of rocks.

mtts said...

THANK YOU

FNG said...

So much for reading comprehension. I could have sworn the title was "The Maternal Right to kneecap." Sheesh!

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moneybagzz said...

Just my two cents - most of the women I know do not, will not and can not comprehend ANY notion of right or wrong that is outside of their own narrow self interest.
In this case the woman probably thought to herself that I want what I want (which is to indoctrinate all 4 of her girls against the father) and no court, judge or other patriarchal authority will get in my way!

Very few women ever view a matter from outside of the 'circle of right' - I am right because of my gender and my gender makes me right.

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