Edward Kruk Associate Professor UBC Speaks Out Against Injustice in Nathalie's Case

Feuding parents tear their children apart
Letter to the Editor – Vancouver Sun

Published: Friday, August 18, 2006

Although I normally support fathers in their efforts to reconnect with their children following separation and divorce, I cannot support the forced estrangement of Nathalie Gettliffe from her children's lives and her current incarceration. Although removing her children from Canada without their father's knowledge is a form of kidnapping with particularly devastating consequences for children, the forced removal of either parent from the lives of children via a judicially imposed sole custody order, absent a finding that the children are in need of protection from the parent, is tantamount to a legal form of kidnapping with similarly devastating results. A viable alternative exists in the form of joint custody or shared parenting.

Although there is no guarantee that a vindictive parent would not take a child away under a joint custody order, research clearly shows that when neither parent feels threatened by the potential loss of his or her child via the prevailing "winner take all" formula of sole custody, this kind of desperate act is rare -- and children are spared the legal abuse they are currently subjected to under the present system. Children need both parents -- as parents, not "visitors" -- which is possible only under joint physical custody after parental separation.

Edward Kruk

Associate Professor,

Leader, Separated and Divorced Fathers Project; Fatherhood Involvement Research Alliance,

School of Social Work and Family Studies, University of B.C.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006