In Florida, being a victim of domestic violence means you not only lose your dignity and self-respect, but you lose your children too. Under the law of Florida, if a case of domestic abuse gets reported, the state is authorised to take the custody of the children (if any) and separate them from their parents to provide them with a healthy and better environment.
The state holds the opinion that parents who have been unable to protect their children from having witnessed episodes of abuse, cannot be relied for their well being and upbringing in the future. The state has used the phrase “failure to protect” to address this issue.
Lena Hales, a woman in Florida, met a similar tragedy. She was deprived of her children after being physically abused by her ex-husband. Florida’s Child Welfare Agency claims that children cannot be left in an unsafe environment, therefore, Lena, guilty of maintaining a relationship with her ex-husband, who also happens to be abusive, should let go of her children, in the name of their protection.
Ironically, the abuser was punished, he was kept in prison for twenty-one good minutes. And Lena was punished too, so she lost her kids. Protests have been carried out against the State Agency that claims to protect children. Mothers who have been separated from their children have been protesting, and are of the view that state is doing more harm than good to the concerned families. The state should hold the abusers accountable, rather than making things worse for women, who go through domestic violence and later have to experience the trauma of being separated from their children as well.
It has been two and a half years that Lena is living alone. She is blamed of letting her children witness how she was being beaten by her husband, and not doing enough to prevent them from watching it. The incident took place in 2019, and ever since then Lena’s son has been under the custody of her mother. She goes to see him on weekdays and enjoys preparing breakfast for him before he leaves for school, but that is it, after this little meet up she is again required to endure her loneliness.
Lena kept recordings of her phone calls with her ex-husband, where he was verbally abusing her and threatening her of physical abuse. She wanted to prove her innocence to the state. The authorities had all the evidence that could prove that Lena was the victim, yet, her ex-husband was released from jail within minutes after being detained and not just that, the court even decided that the abuser was more of what they considered to be a safe parent, as a result of which they granted full custody of their four year old daughter to her father.
In a nutshell, the victims of domestic abuse in Florida are victims twice.
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