The Guardian, 04.08.2001
Denied parents driven to fasting Hunger strike challenges German
courts' custody practice By Kate Connolly in Berlin Michael Hickman has not
eaten for 23 days. Tired out and gaunt, he tells his painful story for the
umpteenth time, although it fails to quell his anger. Around his neck a plastic
notice says '2018, 3'. The 48-year-old South African environmental manager lost
his children five and a half years - or 2,018 days - ago, when his German wife
took them to Germany. Since then he
has seen them only three times - hence the '3'. And there is little indication
that the German justice system will ever return them to him. Mr Hickman is one of about two dozen parents who have spent
more than three weeks on hunger strike in the Alexanderplatz
in Berlin in an effort to
shame Germany into allowing
them access to their children, who were all taken in child-custody disputes.
The parents, from Canada, Croatia, Thailand, France, Poland, South Africa, the
US and Germany, three of them mothers, say they will starve themselves until
they see some sign that the government is interested in their plight. Germany is accused of
being a consistent violator of international treaties on the rights of
children, particularly the Hague convention, which it ratified in 1990. The
convention says that foreign courts must return abducted childrens
to their custodial parents. According to the office of regional statistics, 50%
of the 150,000 children caught up in custody disputes in Germany do not see one
of their parents during the first year. After the third year the figure rises
to 70%. The parents' lawyers argue that there is no common understanding in Germany of a child need
for access to both parents after a divorce. As a result, although the concept
and benefits of joint custody are enshrined in a 1998
family law, in practice courts prefer to rule in favour
of single-parent custody, particularly in cases involving foreigners with
German spouses. "There is a prevailing inhumane view of the family which
shows this is still a totalitarian society," said Matthias Bloch, a family
rights lawyer who is fighting on behalf of some of the striking parents.
"If the family breaks up due to divorce, the preferred idea is to make a
completely new unit." The child can be forced to change its name to that
of a new partner, described as the "social" father or mother, and the
old partner is excluded from the unit. Any attempt by the old partner to
disturb this arrangement can mean a further curtailment of his or her rights.
"The Germans hate disorder, so this neat arrangement suits them very
well," Mr Bloch added. As a result many parents
are prevented from seeing their children, often for years on end. Michael
Hickman's wife, Nicola, took their two children, John Michael and Sebastian,
back to Germany in January 1996.
Since then Mr Hickman has been fighting the courts in
vain for, at the very least, access to his children, now 11 and eight. He has
spent £150,000 so far trying to retrieve his children, and his business has
almost collapsed. Once, when he tried to visit them at his parents-in-laws'
house, armed riot police arrived and arrested him. The few times he managed to
see his children at the local youth office, he says, they talked in quick
whispers and were petrified and distressed by the social workers who sat in on
the brief sessions. So he stopped seeking the sessions. The parents have
resorted to starving themselves as a last resort, he added. "Our hunger
strike is the only way left for us to get justice in the most inhumane system
in the world, as everything else has failed." The German media have all
but ignored the hunger strike. The parents say that government pressure has
been put on television stations not to broadcast the story.