Custody penalties ripped

Group: Jail moms who deny access

March 31, 1998, by Philip Lee-Shanok

Moms who deny their ex-spouses legal access to their children should be jailed, a Joint Senate-House of Commons committee on child custody and access heard yesterday.

Groups representing men who have been denied visitation rights complained there was a bias in the family law system favoring women as custodial parents after a divorce.

Stacy Robb of the advocacy group Divorce and Defence Strategies D.A.D.S. Canada, said there should be increasingly tougher penalties including jail time.

"On a first offence, the party should attend a class to educate them: on the second , community service, but on the third a jail term. On the fourth change the custody orders," Robb told the 23 member committee.

Grant Wilson, president of the Canadian Children's Rights Council, also called for tougher penalties. "Children have a right to see both parents as judged by a court" he said. Wilson cited the case of Mississauga mom Lisa Barbosa, 31, who was jailed after she barred her five year-old daughter from seeing the child's dad. Barbosa was sentenced to 60 days in Metro West Detention centre Feb. 23 for contempt. She is free pending an appeal.

In Alberta and B.C., counseling is mandatory before a couple with children can divorce. Such out-of-court programs could help solve some problems, panel members and Liberal MP Dr. Carolyn Bennett suggested.

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