To the Editor:

When will the justice system and our lawyers put our children FIRST, not the parents who abuse them? Should the justice system and lawyers not be looking at the evidence before them, like the psychologist who has spent time with these children and who has seen the fear that these children hold deep inside their frail little heart and minds?

Don’t these children deserve to be SAFE and HAPPY? These children will NOT adjust to being put back into a situation with the same person who STOLE their innocence, beat them or forgot to feed them.

If a little girl was sexually abused by a parent, the abuser should not be given joint custody again.

Judges often look through rose-colored glasses and think all things can be worked out and that a child should know both their biological parents – in a perfect world this would be true but also in a perfect world this type of child abuse would never happen.

We cannot let this happen, as she would be terrified of this man. This is not right, or fair to the child as this court case is to be about her not the person who hurt her.

Guardians often feel that our hands are tied and do not know which way to turn, we sit in fear and anguish with the thought that our legal system will give this child back to an abuser and we will forever lose our little girl, mentally and God forbid possibly physically.

Is it not our job as a community to make sure that these children do not fall through the cracks of the legal system? After all is it not what is BEST for the child? NOT what is best for the parent!

Name withheld by request

Fort St. John