When the girls refused to visit their father, he blamed his wife. She had never wanted a divorce until the girls said how much they feared him. Now that DCYF has given the girls to him in another state -- and washed their hands of it -- I wonder if he allows the children to see their mother at all. Or has she returned to Switzerland to make the "torture" (her children's word for it) less painful for them?
In my years of working with battered women, I have seen many good mothers lose children to abusive ex-spouses. Some mothers went on to accomplish important things--though that was no substitute for raising their own children. Two such stories are told in these books by Dr. Jerri Nielsen at the South Pole:
Someday we will learn Mami's story as well.
Today's Providence Journal has this to say (click once to enlarge):
If the Department of Children, Youth and Families (DCYF) is willing to evaluate its own performance in the case of Molly and Sara -- and many other children -- the state must provide a way for us to question this agency with the evidence of abuse by its own staff. We need a genuine process of Truth and Reconciliation to evaluate the way DCYF has abused its power in the past if we are to trust it with such an important job as protecting vulnerable children.
