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The fathers' rights movement in the UK consists of a number of diverse pressure groups, ranging from charities (whose activities are regulated by the Charities Act), self-help groups and civil disobedience activists, who started to obtain wide publicity in 2003. The movement's origin can be traced to 1974 when Families Need Fathers (FNF) was founded. At the local level, many activists spend much time providing support for newly separated fathers, most of whom are highly distraught. Although accused of being sexist by some uninformed and ostensibly politically correct commentators, these groups also campaign for better treatment for excluded mothers, women in second marriages and grandparents - all of whom suffer discrimination in respect of contact with their (grand)child(ren).
There are also a number of specialising in particular needs.
There are a number of issues which drive the participants in the father's rights' movement:
Whilst the line of government ministers has for a long time been one of denial that there is a problem, with no plans for new legislation, Lord Filkin, the family justice minister announced at the beginning of April 2004 that there will be a green paper outlining proposals intended to improve the methods used to settle child custody disputes. This has now been published with the title Parental Separation: Children?s Needs and Parents? Responsibilities.
The UK government is felt to be conducting a "kite-flying" exercise to test reaction. Hitherto, it has been observed that reform was being steered down a side-line, with ministers such as Rosie Winterton arguing that the law was flexible enough to allow decisions to be left to the judiciary, and the judges such as Judge Wall arguing that if change is required it is up to the legislators. This may be the case now too, and fathers' rights groups argue that pressure from every angle should be increased and that in spite of some early wins, there should be absolutely no celebrations yet.
The new system in the UK whereby the amount of child support that, in the vast majority of cases, the father pays, is acknowledged to be less fair than the old because it has ceased to take into account the other household's income. This is justified on the grounds that it saves administrative cost for the government agency concerned.
Three years ago Mr Justice Wall (now Lord Justice) chaired a Children Act Sub-Committee (known as CASC). They reported in March 2002 in a document called "Making Contact Work". It called for "urgent reform". It was a sort of Hutton Inquiry of family law reform. It is well known that Wall LJ was very vexed when nothing at all appeared to happen for over two years.
The Facilitation and Enforcement stakeholder group was however created to discuss the CASC report. The impression formed by many involved in this group was that the government had no true appetite for reform, and just hoped the problem would go away.
Fathers 4 Justice have had remarkable success in bringing the whole subject to the nation's attention at a bottom-up grass-roots level, and the fathers' stories they relate have appalled many people.
An activist called Oliver Cyriax has run conferences promoting early intervention. These were attended by high ranking members of the judiciary, including from overseas, where schemes that promote retaining both parents' involvement in childcare, but leave the courts as last resort, have been successful - notably in Florida and California. There is an alliance made up of senior members of the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA), Family Law Bar Association (FLBA), Hamish Cameron (the child psychiatrist with the President's ear), Fathers Direct and the campaigning charity Families Need Fathers. President of the UK Family Division of the courts Dame Butler Sloss has said she supports this plan.
Fathers' Rights campaigners urgently want an "Early Interventions Pilot Plan" to test and develop compulsory mediation and parenting plans, etc. backed up by a strict enforcement regime.
In July 2004 the UK Government published a Green Paper in response to the two year old Making Contact Work document, and the more recent Child Contact Survey . Only the year before, the Government had been indicating that no legislative changes in this area were planned, so this is a turnaround whose timing is generally felt to be the result of the efforts of fathers' rights activists.
At the same time, the Tory Party has started making noises that fundamental changes in the law are required . Some observers have expressed regret that this has become a party political issue, but this development goes to the heart of gender politics and could become an important vote swinger at the forthcoming General Election. The Labour Party is seen to support the status quo, reflecting the radical feminist stance taken by CAFCASS's trade union NAPO. This position, originally detailed in NAPO's anti-sexist policy document (which includes the statements: Family Court work is an important opportunity to build on the strengths and the expansion of women's roles and ...to develop policies and strategies which challenge the discrimination against women in contested residence and contact decisions), espouses the view that women in society need to be supported in their decision-making capacity in order to resist the forces of patriarchy. The Opposition stance is that such a policy is against the existing Children Act, which has effectively been hijacked by idealologues in powerful positions in organisations such as CAFCASS, supported widely by Social Services departments. The Fathers Rights' movement has drawn attention to the marginalisation of men in society by this radical feminist tendency, supported by the Government most particularly in the appointment of Margaret Hodge, a well-known denialist and feminist who is a key figure in the ministerial sisterhood, that group of long-standing feminist friends who have managed to network their way into the very heart of government .
The Liberal Democrats, the other major UK political party, has framed the issue in terms of domestic violence, but yet has to communicate its ideas widely. One thesis is that children should only remain resident with one parent if it is considered safe to do so; otherwise it is generally better to have both parents involved. There is considerable confusion surrounding the issue of safety in this context, particularly as it is a fact that most children's injuries occur in the kitchen, according to statistics published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA).
June 2004: published by SFLA.
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