Thursday, November 5, 2009

No more faith in the French legal system

A bit off topic, but I have to vent...

I met a very nice woman about two months ago at a meeting of the local version of La Leche League - she had 6-month old twins, who she had been breastfeeding since they were born.
We met again by chance a week later and then found out we lived really close to each other. So we met up a few times to go to the park with our babies. She then mentioned the relationship with her husband was not good, but didn't go into detail.

Last Saturday she called me and asked if she could come by. I sensed something was wrong. And I was right: a few days before her husband had come in with a court order and snatched the babies - who were still (exclusively) breastfed! - away from her, on some false accusations that she was mistreating them (and him).

This is now more than a week ago. She still has no idea where her children are. She calls her husband every day, but doesn't get many answers. In the meantime, the judge acknowledged that she made an error, but nothing can be done until a hearing next Tuesday (two weeks after the babies were taken from their mother).

I first thought she just had a bad lawyer - found her a good one - but that one says the same.
It's true that I don't know the full story, and I haven't known my friend that long, but long enough to know she's very friendly and a loving and caring mother to her twins. So wtf is this? How can it happen that babies are taken away from their mother just like that, without hearing both sides of the story? I thought a mother always had a stronger position than a father when it comes to child custody... I find this all very upsetting.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a strange, and frankly awful story. I can't imagine... how terrible for this woman AND the babies!!

Anonymous said...

That's terrible news! I hope her babies are ok. It's strange that they wouldn't check up on her first to prove the accusations before just taking her children away.

Coffeegrljapan said...

This is so heartbreaking.

Yousef said...

Yet again the law screwed up. This woman is in my prayers.