Israel: 10,000 Divorced Children At Risk, Shared Parenting Urged

By Joel Leyden
Israel News Agency

Jerusalem, Israel ---- March 25....(INA) - After a series of high profile demonstrations by Fathers Rights and Children Rights groups, Israel's Welfare and Social Services Ministry is now preparing to implement stricter guidelines for child welfare social workers. The Ministry states that these new rules will be enacted to avoid gender bias discrimination in custody disputes.

Thousands of divorced and single fathers in Israel have complained that the current governmental system does not give equal consideration to men who want to parent their children.

Also released this week were disturbing facts that there were over 3,758 divorce cases last year where Israel social workers had to intervene to protect children due to serious disputes between the parents. This marked an 18 percent increase from the year before.

The Jerusalem Post and Haaretz reported that about 10,000 children in those families are considered to be in "high risk" due to high conflict between the parents. A small number of children have needed to be hospitalized because of suicide attempts, anorexia or other severe psychological problems.

The figures show that one out of three divorce cases are accompanied by a particularly serious dispute between the parents. There were 11,000 divorces in 2007, the Central Bureau of Statistics said.

Israel family courts and child welfare departments from Tel Aviv, Ra'anana and Rohovot to Hadera, Hafia and Jerusalem have ignored hard evidence from leading psychological associations which state that children could avoid being in high risk if shared parenting and joint custody became the norm.

The American Psychological Association (APA) states: "Children from divorced families who either live with both parents at different times or spend certain amounts of time with each parent are better adjusted in most cases than children who live and interact with just one parent."

The APA research was based on a meta-analysis of 33 studies between 1982 to 1999 that examined 1,846 sole-custody and 814 joint-custody children. The child psychology studies compared child adjustment in joint physical or joint legal custody with sole-custody settings and 251 intact families. Joint custody was defined as either physical custody - where a child spends equal or substantial amounts of time with both parents or shared legal custody - where a child lives with primarily one parent but both parents are involved in all aspects of the child's life. The article appeared in the March 2002 issue of the Journal of Family Psychology, published by the American Psychological Association (APA).

"Children in joint custody arrangements had less behavior and emotional problems, had higher self-esteem, better family relations and school performance than children in sole custody arrangements," the APA research found. "And these children were as well-adjusted as intact family children on the same measures," said psychologist Robert Bauserman, Ph.D. The APA stated that these positive finding were the result of where joint custody was documented in providing the child with an opportunity to have ongoing contact with both parents.

These findings indicate that children do not actually need to be in a joint physical custody to show better adjustment but just need to spend substantial time with both parents, especially with their fathers, said Bauserman. Also, joint custody couples reported less conflict, possibly because both parents could participate in their children's lives equally and not spend the time arguing over childcare decisions. Unfortunately a perception exists that joint custody is more harmful because it exposes children to ongoing parental conflict. In fact, the studies in this review found that sole-custody parents reported higher levels of conflict.

The Israel Welfare and Social Services Ministry stated that as a direct result of recent complaints from men about unfairness in the family courts and child welfare, had prompted the Israel ministry to establish an internal ministry committee, headed by Prof. Vered Slonim-Nevo from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev which would review the role of social workers in custody disputes and to present its findings as soon as possible. The committee is expected to complete its report within the next month.

The author of this article, who is also the director of Fathers 4 Justice Israel, is presently seeking joint custody or at the very least equal access with his children. He has requested that a social worker be assigned to him so that an informative decision may be given to the family courts by child welfare in Ra'anana, Israel. By the time of this report, the city of Ra'anana has not provided a social worker to this writer, yet the his child's mother has a social worker. Ra'anana, is a northern suburb of Tel Aviv.

"Gender bias discrimination against men who seek more quality parenting time with their children could not be more evident than what one finds in Ra'anana," said a respected child psychologist who practices in Ra'anana. "The Revacha or child welfare department in Ra'anana is dysfunctional. Many of the social workers are young and inexperienced, they do not return phone calls, they are not assigned to men and they are supervised by a woman who believes that the 'child belongs to the mother'. Only one person can take responsibility for how sick this Israel child welfare department operates and that is the mayor of Ra'anana, Nachum Hofree who continues to ignore professional reports sent to him to reform child welfare in Ra'anana."

The Israel Social Services Ministry released statistics illustrating an 18-percent rise last year in the number of divorcing couples in Israel assigned by the family courts to welfare officers for evaluation. Of those evaluated in 2007, 2,867 women were granted sole custody of their children, compared to only 534 men. Only 167 couples were given joint custody.

Social Services Minister Herzog stated that "individuals must be allowed the chance to challenge a welfare officer's recommendation."

In Israel today, couples that cannot agree on issues such as who will be their children's primary caretaker must turn to the family courts. The judge appoints a welfare officer from the ministry to assess the situation and makes a recommendation on whether joint custody is possible or whether custody should go to only one of the parents.

While these officers do not make the final judgment, their opinions are highly regarded by the courts. In many cases, the intricate evaluation process and the ongoing appeals process leaves thousands of children caught up in divorce battles.

Monday's report on children in Israel also indicated that limited manpower has left 2,375 cases, involving thousands of children, unresolved.

"The system needs to operate in an open and equal way in order to allow the best process for the children," said Herzog, adding that he had already proposed increased funds to improve welfare services.

One Israel father who is currently in a custody dispute over his nine-year-old daughter and is not allowed to see her said in an interview on Monday that the social worker assigned to his case had not even met with him.

"I never realized until recently how biased this whole process is against men," he said. "Restraining orders are given far too quickly by judges."

The Justice Ministry's Schnitt Committee, which has been charged with reevaluating the controversial Tender Years Presumption Law, a 1967 law that presumes a mother should take full responsibility for the child until the age of six, is also expected to release findings in the next few months.

Changes to this family law could have an impact on the role of welfare officers in determining custody battles.

More than 1,500 fathers in Israel requested custody of their children in 2007, about 15 percent of all divorce cases. Other requests from fathers may not have been reflected in the social workers' statistics, because the requests were only made to the courts, which do not collect such statistics.

In 850 cases, both parents demanded sole custody, and in 700 cases only the fathers demanded sole custody.

In almost 2,900 cases, social workers in Israel recommended that the mother be awarded custody, a small increase over 2006. In 534 cases, they recommended the father have custody, a 20 percent drop from the previous year. In 167 cases, joint custody was advised.

The Israel court-appointed social workers prefer joint custody, but this is only possible when relations are good between the parents, said Ronit Tzur, the chief national welfare officer.

"People divorce when they have severe differences of opinion," said Niv Amit, director of Israel Fathers Injured By Israel Judge Rivka Mekayes.

"If the parents can't decide and agree on the basic elements in their marriage, how can they then agree on who will have custody of their children? The mother knows that the laws in Israel work against the father and many women use their children as a weapon in divorce battles. The State then decides by discriminating default that the mother has sole custody which then leads to the father being turned into a visitor. Once the loving dad becomes a visitor given only a few hours a week with his children, the kids become alienated (PAS - parental alienation syndrome) against the father and eventually lose all contact with most fathers."

Amit concludes: "And we know very well the documented and devastating result of children who lose a father role model - a dramatic increase in anxiety, loss of self confidence, depression, drug use to substitute for the good feelings of having a protective family and an increase in criminal activity. The tears have to stop. Israel fathers will continue to intensify a public educational awareness campaign in Israel addressing the suffering that children experience as a result of their fathers being separated from them by Israel family courts and Israel child welfare departments which still operate under discriminating gender bias laws that go back to 1962."