When one of the conditions to child visits is supervised access, as shown above, it’s quite obvious that something is not right and the court has decided this because it has determined that children need to be protected. Yet the father’s rights to visit the children still takes priority over how the children feel about meeting their father.
I used to take the children myself to visit their dad so as not to create more trauma to my children by sending them with strangers. I only got Appoġġ involved to take the children to the visits when their father started bringing his new partner along to the visits too. One of my children just didn’t want to go, but nobody would listen. She was forced to go for visits even though she screamed so much, and I can still hear her begging me not to let go of her little hand. All I could do was watch them get into the car and break down and cry. I just couldn’t take it, knowing that there was a very good reason why my children should not be in his presence. My then husband was accused of defiling his two daughters, but since the youngest was too little to speak for herself, although the doctor’s report had all the proof they needed, he was just found guilty on one accusation. He was sentenced to just 2-year imprisonment.
All this happened quite a few years back. It shattered the whole family and we are still suffering from it all. It never really goes away. I was devastated but my priority was to take care of my children. I made sure they got all the psychotherapy and psychiatric care they needed. They were already going to therapy sessions twice a week and were on medication at a very young age. I had to pay for all this privately as waiting lists for free psychotherapy were too long. Having my child put on high doses of medication at a very young age to help her cope with what happened was a nightmare. Side effects were terrible too, but I had to trust the psychiatrist that was taking care of her.
I waited until he was out of prison to go for a legal separation. I wanted full custody and also wanted him out of my young children’s lives for good. At that time my eldest was old enough to make her own choices and stay away from him for good. It didn’t happen that way, he still had a right to see the youngest two and spend time with them. They said he has already been punished, he did his time, he changed his ways. They also pointed out that since he wasn’t found guilty with the second accusation of also defiling our little one, they can’t stop him from seeing her unless something happens! This was the biggest blow of all – how could they do this to my children? Needless to say, these visits sent all the therapy my children had had down the drain. Where was child protection? How could they let my children be in the presence of their perpetrator for four hours a week?
Years have gone by but as a mother I’m still haunted by all this. Therapy helps, but nothing will make me feel good when my children are a constant reminder of the pain they’ve been through. I’m always asking myself, when will their flashbacks stop? Will they ever be able to cope without medication? I hope and I wish that my children are the only ones that had to go through this torture because systems don’t work right, but I know I’m just fooling myself to think that. So many children are suffering out there for different reasons and nobody seems to care. We need to listen to our children more, we need to value children and protect them more. As a society children should be our priority.
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