Type:	Journal Article
Title:	"If I killed you, I'd get the kids": women's survival and protection work with child custody and access in the context of woman abuse
Other Titles:	Qualitative sociology
Authors:	Irwin, Lori G Varcoe, Colleen
Keywords:	Family law;Parenting;Policy;Welfare;CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse);Child protection;Impact on children and young people;Service provision;Criminal justice responses
Year:	2004
Publisher:	Human Sciences Press
Citation:	27 (1), Spring 2004
Notes:	This article presents the results of a 3-year Canadian study of formal systems’ (criminal justice, social assistance, and health care) responses to child custody and access in the context of intimate partner violence. Interviews with 46 women indicate that, when leaving abusive partners, women’s work involved contradictory requirements of preserving the children’s relationships with, but at the same time protecting them from, their fathers. Interviews with 38 service providers and document analysis show how certain practices and policies sustain these contradictory requirements. Findings show that all women with children reported that their abusive partners used the children as part of the dynamics of abuse. Ex-partners threatened to harm or kill the children, or take the children away from the women. Language barriers, poverty and racism increased women’s work and problems experienced within formal systems. Formal systems provide opportunities for the abusive partner to continue to abuse the woman, through her children. These opportunities are made possible through 3 related reasons. Firstly, the dynamics of the violence against women and abuse by a partner did not inform the ways formal systems operated. Secondly, systems operated with a ‘child-centred’ ideology that focused on the well being of the child separately from the well being of the woman. Thirdly, gender biases disregarded gender-based violence which were consistent with certain views of mothering and fathering. Findings support the notion that gender analysis and accounting for violence in custody and access are essential to the safety of women and children.
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/12951
ISSN:	0162-0436
Appears in Collections:	Journal Articles

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