Hello I am from the Netherlands, Utrecht and have a question

[PeterTromp]

Hello everybody in Croatia,

 

Let me introduce myself first: I am a divorced father of two children from the Netherlands and I am the chair of a Dutch parent organisation Child and Postdivorce Parenting (Stichting Kind en Omgangsrecht) and also the moderator and coördinator for the European Forum Familyrights4Europe and the Father Knowledge Centre Europe.

 

See for more information the website of the .Familyrights4Europe forum.

 

You are most welcome to subscribe to the European Forum simply by sending your blank email to: fr4e-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

 

We are now researching the situation of fathers and their children after divorce in Europe and (1) we would like to know how the postdivorce situation and the problems with family law and equality and equal parenting in family law are for the fathers and their children in Croatia? (2) Also we would like to know if there has been done any previous research available in English or German allready in Croatia on the custody and access problems for fathers and their children after divorce? (3) And finally we would like to know about which organisations exist for fathers and children in Croatia, and their websites and their emailadresses for contact?

 

Can anybody give me any information on my questions in either English or German on the situation and problems of fathers and children of divorce in Croatia as I do not speak nor read and write Croatian at all?

 

(Actually it is a miracle that I managed to subscribe to your Croation Legalis forum as I could not read any of your Croation instructions for subscribing. But happily I managed to do so with the help of a Slovenian father.)

 

I hope anybody can contact me on my question.

My details are:

 

Peter Tromp

European Familyrights4Europe Forum and Father Knowledge Centre Europe (FKCE):

- You can subscribe to the European Familyrights4Europe Forum by sending your blank email to: fr4e-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

 

And my personal email is: vaderkenniscentrum@gmail.com

My address is: J. Cabeliaustraat 17, 3554 VH Utrecht, Netherlands

Telefoon: 0031-30-238 3636

Skype username: Peterpan17

 

Much greetings and thanks for your help,

 

Peter Tromp

Netherlands

 

[bigfoot]

Hi, Peter, I am bigfoot

 

my e-mail is bigtoof@bigfoot.com

 

the name of the book is "Stop Walking on Eggshells"....or SWOE

 

visit the url: www.bpdcentral.com, especially the forum - lot of same stories

 

you should also read "Understanding the Borderline Mother: Helping Her Children Transcend the Intense, Unpredictable, and Volatile Relationship " from Ann Lawson

 

and for the beginning - one of my posts:

 

http://www.legalis.hr/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=17165&forum=14&1

 

Best greetings

 

 

Bigfoot

[Coprnica]

http://www.pateros.hr/

[PeterTromp]

Hello Bigfoot,

 

Thank you for reacting and phoning me.

 

With regard to the problem of parents with psychiatric disorders (i.e. borderline, etc.)

I fully agree with your point of view that Borderline diagnosed parents are a main cause of frustration of the present family court access and contact orders of the children with the other parent as well as the main cause of parental alienation (PAS) as it was described by Richard Gardner.

 

The issue of Borderline psychiatric disorder with custodial and residential parents and its effects on keeping the children away from the other parent is very well known in the Netherlands and other EU countries as well.

 

As Borderline diagnosed parents have proven to be incapable of allowing their children to have healthy relationships with both their parents and extended families, it should be argued from the perpective of the great importance of - and the interests of the children in - healthy postdivorce relations with both parents and the extended families from both sides, that parents with Borderline diagnosis should not be given postdivorce parental custody over the children by the courts.

 

Instead it should become standard family court practice by law that in case of diagnosed parental borderline personality disorder the other parent should be awarded sole custody and care over the children as being the more capable parent in allowing the children to have healthy relationships with both parents.

 

In the Netherlands this is called a contrary custody and care decision in the language of the family lawyers, family courts and judges. By which is referred to a custody decision based on objectiviable (and in the individual case also objectivied) counter indications against one of the parents for gaining residency, custody and care, making the parent less capable to be responsible for the welfare of the children involved.

 

The disastrous effects of present sole residency, custody and care practices in family law and family courts on the children of divorce involved

 

More and more research is now available worldwide, proving the tremendous importance for children to maintain healthy and sound relationships with both their parents and extended families in their lives.

 

Children growing up fatherless in oneparent families have far bigger chances of being deprived of positive support and involvement of caring parents in their lives and of being condemned to a live of isolation and exclusion instead.

 

The disastrous effects of sole custody and care family court law and practices on children are well documented by research and range from being more suicide-prone, more automutilation-prone, more eating disorders (higher chance of obesity, anorexia nervosa and boulemia, etc.), more drugs- and alcohol related abuse and addictions, more petty youth crime and anti-social behavior in the company of streetyouth and gangs, more childprostitution, more teenage parenthood, less capabability to have and maintain relationships, less school results and later career results, etc. etc.

 

See for a meta research report on these issues for instance the UK Civitas Report "Experiments in Living: The Fatherless Family, A Meta-analytic study" by

Rebecca O'Neill, Civitas Institute for the Study of Civil Society, September 2002

See: http://www.civitas.org.uk/pdf/Experiments.pdf

 

Another large scale Swedish public health survey on the effects of oneparent families on children in Sweden (amongst one million Swedish families) under the title "Mortality, severe morbidity, and injury in children living with single parents in Sweden: a population-based study" by Gunilla Ringbäck Weitoft, Anders Hjern, Bengt Haglund, Mans Rosén (The Lancet, Elsevier, Volume 361, Number 9354, 25, January 2003) revealed disastrous health effects on children of living in oneparent families.

See: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12559862&dopt=Abstract

 

Because of the above mentioned disastrous effects of family breakdown and divorce on fatherless children of divorce, which is resulting from present sole custody and care family law practices, family breakdown and divorce are now everywhere in the EU countries being prioritised as one of the main issues and problems for our governments to deal with, as these effects result in ftremendous social and financial costs and a fragmentising social structure in our societies.

 

Recently the British Conservative Party calculated for example that the annual costs of family breakdown and divorce cost the British taxpayers 20 billion pounds a year.

 

Family law reform in EU countries based on implementing a postdivorce presumption of shared care and custody and equal parenting by both parents

 

For those reasons all over Europe at present family law reform based on postdivorce shared care and custody and equal paenting is being implemented based on the research results mentioned above in combination with research proving that children in intact families do much better, as well as children in postdivorce equal and shared parenting arrangements, then children in oneparent families.

 

Read for these research results on the benefits of shared care and custody above sole custody family law practices for instance: "Child Adjustment in Joint-Custody Versus Sole-Custody: A Meta-Analytic Review" by Robert Bauserman (Journal of Family Psychology by the American Psychological Association, Inc.2002, Vol. 16, No. 1, 91-102)

See:

http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/fam16191.pdf

 

As a result more and more EU countries now reform their family law based on the introduction of a presumption of joint parental care and custody after divorce instead of the previously prevailing presumption of sole custody and care over the children by the mother only.

 

France started the family law reform tendency towards shared parenting, shared residency, care and custody with its family law reform in 2002 introducting the presumption of "garde alternee" (shared residency) in its family law on divorce. Italy followed by introducing elements of shared residency, care and custody in march 2006. But Belgium went a whole lot further in september 2006 with its family law reform giving presumption to postdivorce bilocation ("Wet op de beurtelingse huisvesting" in Flemish) of the children with both parents. And the Netherlands last month (June 2007) in the Dutch House of Commons have accepted a family law reform introducing equal parenting as the postdivorce default way to go. (Wet op de bevordering van het voortgezet ouderschap).

 

Other EU countries are now following this EU family law reform tendency towards equal and shared postdivorce parenting and are preparing the same family law reforms based on a presumption of shared residency, care and custody instead of - and replacing - the old and previously dominant presumption of sole residency, custody and care in their family laws.

 

Denmark, Norway and Germany are in the process of family law reforms introducing elements of shared residency, care and custody.

 

And in the United Kingdomthe British Conservative Party made a commitment to family law reform based on a presumption of equal postdivorce parenting as a central part of its future reform program for Britain, when being elected to government.

 

I was wondering what the present state of knowledge and family law reform is in this respect in Croatia. Is Croatia a very backward family law country still fully residing in the old sole custody age of family law compared to these forefront EU family law reforms being more based on the premise of equality between both parents and a postdivorce presumption of shared equal parenting by both parents? Or is Croatia a modern European democracy and as such fully part of the more modern European family law reform countries with respect to these issues? Could you inform me on that?

 

Regards,

 

Peter Tromp Phd

Coördinator of the Familyrights4Europe Forum and the Father Knowledge Centre Europe

Netherlands

 

See for more information the website of the .Familyrights4Europe forum.

 

Address: J. Cabeliaustraat 17, 3554 VH Utrecht, Netherlands

E. vaderkenniscentrum@gmail.com

T. 0031-30-238 3636; Skype username: Peterpan17

 

 

 

 

 

[PeterTromp]

Hello Coprnica,

 

Thank you for the link on your fatherorganisation Pateros.

 

Regards,

Peter Tromp

Netherlands

[bigfoot]

Croatia is not only a very backward family law country still fully residing in the old sole custody age of family law , its more terrible, in practice its fundamelistic feministic discriminating country with stalinistics campaigns from time to time blaming mans for every marriage interpersonal conflict, family violence, abondoning the family, and avoiding the obligation for paying the alimentation.

 

In fact the last ( alimentation question ) is only official interest of our freaky Ministery of Family, War Veterans (!!!????) and Intergeneration Solidarity (??), leaded by Jadranka Kosor - war propagandist from Tudjman darkness.

 

The reason for that situation is our transition status. As our govermant trying to show democratic shiny front end to EU ( hiddding criminal and coruption backward) , they give big social power to litlle number of persons organized in few ungoverment groups. They are continuosly working on brainwashing ( terror, media campaigns,...)whole society, changing public opinion, in feministic way of thinking, putting facts upside-down, and influencing on croatian law sistem causing deformated, discriminating Family law practice. These groups are concentrated around Croatian Womans Network, Autonomna ženska kuća (Independent Women House) and kvazi - medical institution called Poliklinika.

 

Thanks to clever moderators ( pozdrav mojoj visprenoj Ani ) this forum is only place where different opinion is heared in Croatia in past years.

 

You should know croatian and read,many terrible and humiliating stories on this forum caused by institution of system, social workers, lawers and judges.......the ones that should help.

 

Only hope that truth (truth you are speaking about ) will once come to us.

[bigfoot]

....is imediatly screening for Dangerous and Severe personality disorders ( borderline and antisocial ) at a first sign of marriage problems ( domestic violence, adultery, request for divorce ...).

 

With this action, all come in place, we are stoping all negative effects on childrens emotional and physical health, stoping abusing, helping to the close person to a disordered person ( which is also abused and at very high health risk ), and even to a distorted person to become more conssisnes about its state and behavior and maybe find some kind of psychosocial therapy.

 

In some casses maybe even the marriage can be saved, in a only logical way...( understanding the problems, knowing the way to solve it...)

 

As a BPD behavior , is not only a trait, than a stable pattern of repeating self- destructive, abusing behavior, very well known and described, reflexing in many other social problems( big percent of narcomans and prostitutes are also borderlines ), bringing that to surface, can also lead to more healthier society.

[fani]

I read attentively all the previous posts, especially the part concerning the EU pratice and changing attitudes which I as a mother of three children fully approve. There remains one remark though and a question: how it works in cases when it is the father who makes the childrens' and their mom's living impossible in many ways (not paying a cent for months and years is just the economical issue, problems caused by such attitudes are unfortunately of another, more dangerous nature where it's the mum a balancing factor, doing impossible things to keep father's presence in the lives of the children... so, not only fathers have been suffering due to a slow, inconsistent and poorly educated staff in social services and disastreous effects of their work where their judgements are being based mostly on superficial and non-expert criteria.. (the slowness and superficiality of the courts is another issue..) the damage has been inflicted to mothers as well in far too many cases.. whereas the children are those who suffer the most in whatever the case you take... Therefore... what if, in case of common/shared custody the other parent is the "problem-causing one"- on what criteria are those judgments based and how well educated experts must be to come to unbiased and professional opinions to the benefit of the children in a split couple...? I am afraid that in our country the existant staff has to go through substantial training in order to be able to function .. and most of them have been functionning already far too long according to old and inappropriate schemes which gives little hope that things can be changed that easily.. But any start in that direction can't make things worse than they already are... Btw..after a 4 hour "terror session" in the social centre the only thing I was asked by the expert team was "You look so nice.. Where did you buy this dress?..."..