In a half-hour program (above), according to AF, in order to win custody, an extremely adversarial, protracted and expensive situation can develop in which the father and mother hire lawyers and psychologists, and write complaints to the authorities.
More importantly, children can be left in the middle and may suffer serious and unncessary psychological damage because of the manner and length of proceedings under the current system. The show asks why the state allows parents to drag their children into custody disputes for years.
Atvertie Faili delved into several individual cases – which would be too complex and would take up too much space to outline in detail here.
In order to understand how to improve the execution of court decisions by the so-called 'Orphans' Courts', a working group has been established by the Justice Ministry. So far, the first expert discussions have been held, in which officials of various ministries, bailiffs, employees of the courts and VBTAI, as well as representatives of other fields, participate.
For example, one proposal is to make it mandatory for parents to attend mediation to try to reach an agreement before they can litigate for custody. But legal changes are likely to take a long time – and until then hundreds of children will remain subject to potentially damaging disputes for custody between their parents.
