NCJ Number
202740
Date Published
May 2003
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This paper examines the validity of the belief that false allegations of child abuse against one parent by the other in child custody cases is rampant in cases brought before the Family Court in Western Australia.
Abstract
Three senior court officials, in a joint presentation to a "Forum Relating to Men" (November 27-28, 1998, Perth) went so far as to state that the Family Court of Western Australia was being "overrun by malicious allegations of sexual abuse by mothers against fathers." Humphreys (1999), however, reports that the empirical studies of child sexual abuse allegations in custody disputes do not support the popular conception of the "falsely accusing" mother. Humphreys quotes a comprehensive 6-month-survey by Thoennes and Tjaden (1990) of 8 domestic relations courts in the United States, which found there were over 9,000 cases of custody/visitation disputes. Of these, only 2 percent involved allegations of child sexual abuse. These findings suggest an underreporting of child abuse by mothers in divorce proceedings, rather than the reverse. Two Australian studies were also cited. They found only a comparatively small number of cases in which child sexual abuse was alleged, and mothers were the source of the allegation in only 42.3 percent of the cases. The bulk of the literature that reports on empirical studies of allegations of child sexual abuse in the context of custody proceedings indicates only a small percentage of cases involve such allegations, at least in Western Australia. The depiction of rampant false allegations of child sexual abuse by one of the parents against the other is apparently a myth. This myth, however, when believed by judges and other court personnel, poses an increased risk that the Family Court will ignore the truth of child sexual abuse at the expense of its victims. 46 references