This Father\u2019s Day, divorced men are seeking their due. An NGO with more than 2,500 members across the country has taken up their cause, saying shared parenting and joint custody of children should be implemented as a rule in divorce or separation cases.<\/p>\n
Bangalore-based Children\u2019s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP) points out that children have a right to remain connected to both parents after a divorce.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn Father\u2019s Day, we demand the basic rights of children to access both biological parents. For this, there is a need for implementing shared parenting and joint custody as a rule in separation and divorce cases,\u201d CRISP founder president Kumar V. Jahgirdar, who was visiting Shimla, told IANS.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur laws are wife-centric – from the custody of children for divorced couples to allegations of domestic violence to dowry harassment. We are demanding the setting up of special guardian courts in major cities,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
CRISP with its regional chapters in Chandigarh, Chennai, Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi and Lucknow has been fighting to constitute a separate ministry for the welfare of children who face problems after the divorce of their parents.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince 40 percent of the country\u2019s population is children, our demand to bifurcate the union women and child development ministry is genuine,\u201d said Jahgirdar, who is fighting for shared parenting of his daughter with his ex-wife.<\/p>\n
Shiva Kumar, a divorced software engineer, said: \u201cDespite a court\u2019s order, my wife is not allowing me to meet my 11-year-old son. For more than five years, I have not seen him.\u201d<\/p>\n
He blamed the centuries-old laws that are exploited by married women and their families. \u201cWe want laws that stop the creation of a fatherless society,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
S.P. Sidhu, a leading lawyer based in Chandigarh, said: \u201cAs per law, a child below the age of five always remains in the custody of the mother and the father doesn\u2019t have the right bring him or her up.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if the child is more than five years old, the court generally favours the mother for custody. However, only in exceptional cases the court gives custody to a father, that too after he convinces the court that the mother is not taking care of the child well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have even come across cases where the mother discourages the child to meet the father even after he has won the right to meet the child,\u201d Sidhu added.<\/p>\n
Nitin Gupta, secretary of the Chandigarh CRISP chapter, said parental alienation often occurs when one parent gets children estranged from the other parent for personal vendetta.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have seen that the child is brainwashed by the dominant parent against the non-custodial parent, usually the father. This brings a lot of mental distress and trauma not only to the child and but also to the alienated parent,\u201d Gupta said.<\/p>\n
Jahgirdar said the Indian legal system and society at large is still based on a patriarchal mindset which considers fathers incapable of nurturing children.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is totally incorrect. Men are as capable as women to be caregivers and bring up children in a normal way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are trying to impress upon the government to allow shared parenting like allowing the children to stay with their father on vacations or weekends,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
According to the data available with CRISP, over 15,000 divorce cases are pending in Bangalore alone. The figure was collected from family courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This Father\u2019s Day, divorced men are seeking their due. An NGO with more than 2,500 members across the country has taken up their cause, saying shared parenting and joint custody of children should be implemented as a rule in divorce or separation cases. Bangalore-based Children\u2019s Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting (CRISP) points out that children […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[405],"class_list":["post-5692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-top-law-news","tag-divorced-fathers"],"yoast_head":"\n