Custody and Access: are children's interests being protected?

All who work with broken families know that disputes as to custody and access of children are the most difficult of all cases to resolve and often create great bitterness. Yet the law relating to them is exceedingly simple. It can be expressed in nine words: “The welfare of the child is the paramount consideration.”

Despite its apparent simplicity though, the law and practices relating to custody and access are undergoing a great deal of heart-searching. If legal periodical literature of other countries is an accurate reflection of concern, it seems that very radical re-thinking is occurring abroad. Some of this is likely to rub off on this country. For, whether we like it or not, the world is getting smaller and the welfare of children is becoming more and more an international concern. The ratification by Australia of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child is a timely reminder of this. The incidence of child abduction, kidnapping and inter-country marriages, and of course, inter-country adoption, surely testifies to the fact that we should now be looking at the care and well-being of children as a global issue.