FAMILY COURT PICKET: WED 3 JUNE 2026 12.30-1.30 Central family court

This month we’re focusing on the ways and places where children have been and still are stolen from loving mums/families, including through historic deportations (eg to Australia & Canada) and forced adoptions (eg UK and Ireland), stealing of indigenous children (North America, Australia) and the reproductive genocide of mothers and children in Gaza, Lebanon and other war zones.  More on Stolen Children’s Month here.

LATEST RESEARCH FROM OUR CASE WORK  

Based on 100 mothers of 187 children who have come to us in the past 18 months, we found: the majority 94% are single mothers, 74% are victims of domestic abuse, 42% are disabled and 39% were diagnosed with mental health issues, 34% are women of colour, 26% are immigrant women.  30% of children were in foster care and 18% of the children (whose mothers were victims of domestic violence) had been taken by perpetrator fathers.  14% of children had been forcibly adopted.  These shocking figures must lead policy makers and professionals to focus on the harm of separation and the trauma it causes to many thousands of children and their families every year.

WINNING VICTORIES AGAINST ARBITRARY SEPARATIONS

Ms A – a single mother found it hard to get her child to school due to her disabilities.  The school reported to social services and instead of helping they made her mental health worse.  Her young primary school child was immediately taken into foster care, leaving them both distraught.  We helped her get a good lawyer and supported her through the family court process against social services who were pressing for long-term foster care.  In 8 months she turned her case around and won her child back.  Unusually, the Judge ordered that the council must help Ms A and her daughter move closer to family, so she would have a support network.  Community support (eg with transport to school) would have stopped the child being removed into care in the first place.

Ms B – a disabled mum of two children, one of whom is disabled. Ms B left a violent and coercively controlling husband who used his professional standing to stop her reporting the abuse but to charm professionals into believing that she was the problem. Social services went to court to try to take both children from her.  Ms B was allowed to keep one child on a care order at home.  The other child was given to the violent ex.  With our support over the past year she has been able to show that social services are wrong and that she is not the problem.  We are going back to court to insist on a discharge of the care order, and to ensure she has regular contact with the child living with their father 

Ms C – tried to flee a domestic abuse relationship with her 3-week-old breastfeeding baby after calling the police for help.  When they arrived, they believed the husband’s false allegation (a common occurrence) that she had mental health issues – despite there being no evidence of this.  They told Ms C to leave and threatened that if she took the baby she would be arrested.  We helped her get a lawyer and after three years in family court she was able to show that the violent father was lying and the police were wrong.  Her now toddler was returned to her care full time.  While she and her child can never regain those early years which are so fundamental to children’s wellbeing and development, they are finally together.

We will continue campaigning to end this child removal industry which has state abuse and private profit at its heart.  We demand:

·       Abolish forced adoptions and foster to adopt.

·       Abolish “possible future emotional harm”.

·       Abolish “presumption of contact.

·       Stop taking children from victims of domestic violence.  

·       Stop conflating poverty with neglect. 

·       Mothers and other primary carers must be entitled to a Care Income so that children can be with their families safely, where they belong.