After reading an article in Family Law recently written by Baroness Butler Sloss, I was alarmed and saddened to read that 29% of British children live in poverty. It seems appalling in this day and age that a third of all children in Britain should be classed as living in poverty. Clearly as a society we are failing our children.
Baroness recounted that children in poverty has a knock on effect into their education with over £1 million children truanting from school and 9,000 being permanently excluded. Shockingly, the article referred to 5,000 children under the age of 16 who are currently used for prostitution in the UK.
Children are also losing the benefit of a relationship with both parents. It appears that upon the breakdown of a relationship, 60% of fathers who leave do not maintain a relationship with their children more than occasionally and the majority of that 60% maintain no contact with their children at all. Children need the love and reassurance of both parents to feel secure and enable them to thrive (see my future blog ‘Children Need Their Fathers’). No explanation is usually given to these children and they do not have the consolation of a bereavement process.
Unfortunately the children are all too often the forgotten victims in a relationship breakdown and suffer emotional harm as a result, doing less well at school, and may develop attachment issues, finding it difficult to make lasting relationships as adults.
Melanie Townsend
If you are separating (or have separated) from your partner and need legal advice about contact and living arrangements for your child/children, please telephone 01992 892214. We offer a fixed fee first appointment with one of our specialist family law solicitors at half of the usual hourly rate (i.e. you get 30 minutes free).
