Legal Action for Women: Stop forced separation of children from mothers in UK and US

Guest posting from Legal Action for Women that would resonate with KUWG members who are parents. The event concerned is sponsored by Hampstead & Kilburn MP Tulip Siddiq

Suffer the Little Children Stopping forced separations of children from mothers in UK and US Tuesday, 7 June 2016 6.30 - 8.30pm Grimond Room, Portcullis House, Bridge Street, SW1A 2LW   Westminster    All welcome. (Portcullis House is part of the Houses of Parliament - please allow time to go through security) Kindly sponsored by Tulip Siddiq, MP for Hampstead & Kilburn Guest speaker: Richard Wexler, Executive Director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform, USA, and author of Wounded Innocents: The Real Victims of the War Against Child Abuse   Other speakers:  Cristel Amiss, Black Women’s Rape Action Project  Nicola Mann, Women Against Rape  Anne Neale, Legal Action for Women  Kim Sparrow, Single Mothers’ Self Defence  Mothers fighting for their children Suffer the Little Children – a Dossier by Legal Action for Women documenting mothers’ struggle in the family courts in England, will be launched at the meeting. Following the US-model, forced separations of mothers and children have increased massively in the UK in the past 20 years, especially against those of us on low incomes, of colour, immigrant, teenagers, with learning difficulties … Sexism, racism, domestic violence, usually suffered by the mother, poverty, homelessness … all influence decisions to remove children from their mothers. Everyone knows that mothers are children’s first line of protection and defence, but this is increasingly denied. Early intervention by the state in the name of protecting children has led to cruel and traumatic separation rather than compassionate support. One third of children report being abused while in care. It has spawned an industry which feeds on the attack on parents’ capacity to raise their own children. As“emotional abuse and neglect” have become a more common basis for intervention than physical or sexual abuse, the discretionary powers of social workers have dangerously expanded. In Scotland, the new ‘Named Person’ legislation is being challenged in the Supreme Court as it raises concerns that the state is undermining families by taking parenting powers upon itself. A child protection social worker warns us about the government’s latest plans:
	The “undeserving poor” have lost their council homes; lost their benefits and lost their community services; why not make it easier to lose their children too?
But mothers, grandmothers and other carers in the US and UK are forming self-help groups and fighting back.  Called by: Legal Action for Women law@allwomencount.net  020 7482 2496  http://legalactionforwomen.net