Florida family law dictates that judges allow both parents to be in their child’s life unless there’s clear evidence it is detrimental to the child, he said, adding: “The appropriate thing to do would be to get the report, go to the court and say, ‘In light of this, it’s detrimental.’ ”

He compared the case to other parental abductions.
“People need to understand this is a typical child custody battle between two former spouses,” DerOvanesian said. “My understanding is that the ex-wife (Christa Finch) has made allegations about abuse to children and family services and these have been investigated and unfounded. It’s just back and forth all the time. These are fairly typical custody situations.”

Seven-year-old Tanadon, however, never showed up.

Because she kept his birth from Canadian immigration officials, Chumchantha’s efforts to bring the boy to Canada from her native Thailand are being rebuffed on the grounds that he doesn’t qualify as a family member.

“I was shocked,” said the 31-year-old mother of three, who makes her home in Ottawa. “I just want to be with my son.”

Stung by the cultural stigma that came with being a single mother in a Thai village and with no knowledge of the immigration process, she kept her baby a secret, putting all thoughts of going to a new country out of her mind as the sponsorship process dragged on.

When her permanent residency finally came through, Chumchantha was caught between leaving her son behind and jeopardizing her aging mother’s chances of being with the rest of her family in Canada.

In a blur of confusion, she made the gut-wrenching decision to leave her son with his paternal grandparents, an arrangement she vowed would be temporary.

Now, four years later, not even a birth certificate or photos – both before and after her pregnancy – have helped as Chumchantha grapples with a complex immigration system that’s keeping her from the son she failed to declare to Canadian authorities.

“I just didn’t know what to do then,” she said. “I feel this is not really fair.”
“We can’t go wasting years and leaving people in limbo.”

Chumchantha’s request to have her case re-examined has already been dismissed, and she has opted not to appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Canada for fear of losing.

Instead, desperate to experience at least part of her son’s childhood, Chumchantha is now considering a novel solution: having her husband of two months adopt the child so the family can be together.

“I want to fight for it,” she said.

It won’t be easy, warned Mike Bell, an immigration lawyer consulted by the couple.

“There is a potential option for the stepfather to adopt the child, assuming he intends to assume a parental role,” Bell said. But it’s far from a perfect solution, he warned.

Everything is out of the family’s hands and they have no control over anything.”

In addition to extensive background checks and a comprehensive home-study, if a family wants to adopt a pre-identified child in Thailand, the process gets complicated overseas, she added.

Thailand requires the birth parents to relinquish all right to the child in court before a pre-identified child can be adopted. For a case like Chumchantha’s, that could create problems which would stretch the typical three-year adoption process even further.

Still, nothing impossible.

Chumchantha’s daily routine is now punctuated by lawyer visits, consultations with support groups and appeals to politicians. Meanwhile, as she juggles her job, her new marriage and her push to be reunited with her son, she clings to the crackly long distance calls that serve as her only connection to her child.

Debra D. Chatman of Minneapolis has been charged in Hennepin County District Court with endangerment of a child, a felony, and malicious punishment of a child, a gross misdemeanor.

According to the complaint, William T. Hurley beat the boy with his firsts and an extension cord. Chatman admitted she initially punished the boy by striking him with a belt, then Hurley burned him with an iron, the complaint said. Chatman said she heard the boy scream, “He’s burning me.”
Chatman said the boy ran out of the apartment, so she grabbed him and dragged him back in, the complaint said. Hurley allegedly started punching the boy again, and the boy ran to hide in the oven and grabbed on to something in there. Chatman said she turned on the oven to cause the boy to “release his hold,” the complaint said.

When the boy got out of the oven, Hurley “continued to assault him,” the complaint said.

Hurley was charged last week with malicious punishment of a child.

According to the charges against Hurley filed in Hennepin County District Court, police arrived at an apartment on the 2000 block of Elliott Avenue on a child abuse call. The boy told officers that Hurley was upset with him for being in his mother’s bedroom. Hurley punched him and threatened to kill him for hiding under a bed, the charges allege.

Officers saw marks and burns on the boy’s body, and, as they spoke to him, Hurley said he had ‘whooped’ [the boy] and “that he would get another,” the complaint said. Hurley had to be restrained by police, the complaint said.

So the Carpathian Dental Associates in Johnson City came up with a sweet deal to encourage kids to keep the cavities away.

Sunday, they offered a dollar per pound of candy turned in at their offices.

The candy that was collected will be sent to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan along with thank you notes from the children.

“We’re always hearing complaints from the parents ‘we pay all the money to have the kids’ teeth fixed and now they’re going to eat all this candy for Halloween.’ So it’s kind of a win-win situation: they keep some of the candy, they give some of it to the troops, and they’re getting some dollars,” said Dr. Hayes Aronson.

Along with the cash, each child took home a glowing toothbrush and some healthy snacks.

The Northern Territory News has learned a relative raised concerns about the welfare of the baby and his two older brothers, who were placed in the care of their uncle after their mother died of swine flu.

The family member made the complaint after witnessing the uncle’s treatment of the three children placed in his care.

A week later the baby was injured. The child remains in an Adelaide hospital with suspected permanent brain damage.
NT Child Protection Minister Malarndirri McCarthy ordered the inquiry on Wednesday.

Dr Bath will look specifically at how soon injuries started after reports of child abuse.
“The welfare of Territory children is a matter of grave concern and all Members of Parliament have a responsibility to ensure that the system protects children,” she said.

If the teacher can’t help, or you are not satisfied with their response, you can talk to the headteacher. You should be able to arrange a meeting or a telephone conversation with the headteacher through the school office. If this isn’t practical, you may wish to make a written complaint.

Complaining to the governing body

If your complaint is not resolved, the next stage is to approach the governing body of the school. All state-funded schools are required to have a procedure to deal with any complaints relating to the school, or to any facilities or services that the school provides for the local community.

If you want to complain to the governing body, ask the school for a copy of its complaints procedure. All complaints to the governing body must be in writing.

Complaining to your local authority

Complaining to the Secretary of State
Finally, if you believe that your school’s governing body or your local authority is acting ‘unreasonably’ you can complain in writing to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. Complaints to the Secretary of State are handled by the government’s Department for Children, Schools and Families.

This should be a last resort, and you should highlight in your letter the steps you have already taken to resolve the problem. You should be aware that the Department for Children, Schools and Families will not usually be able to investigate your complaint if your child no longer goes to the school where the incident took place.

For Mercado and her family, last fall was a happy time, one they wanted to record and save in the venerable tradition of the family photo. Johnny Fernandez, Mercado’s boyfriend, had just emigrated from Lima, Peru, ending a yearlong separation, and on top of that, it was their son’s first birthday.

The photographs they took over several days in late October included pictures of Fernandez reunited with the family at their modest home in suburban Richardson. Others captured their 1-year-old son Rodrigo, and 4-year-old Pablizio, from Mercado’s earlier marriage, playing in a neighborhood park. Using the camera’s timer, they also took three snapshots of themselves, naked in their bed. They arranged their bodies in ways that showed less flesh than most freeway billboards.

A half-dozen others recorded the kids at bath time. Fernandez took several photos of the boys “playing around,” naked and innocent, with the oldest flashing a big smile. Mercado, who says she often bathed with the kids, is in several of the shots unclothed from the waist up, holding her arm modestly across her bare chest.

In one–the photo that would threaten to send Mercado and her boyfriend to prison–the infant Rodrigo is suckling her left breast.

After Mercado dropped off the film for processing, a technician viewed the images and decided they were “suspicious,” according to a police report. As required under Texas law, he immediately contacted local police. Mercado says that when she went to pick up her pictures, the clerk told her there would be a delay, and then only returned three of the four sets of prints.

To Richardson police, who arrived at the store that afternoon and apparently made up their minds from the content of the pictures alone, this was nothing short of a felony case of child pornography. “We thought they contained sexuality,” says Sergeant Danny Martin, a Richardson police spokesman, explaining why two Richardson police detectives began pursuing a criminal case. “If you saw the photos, you’d know what I mean.”

With nothing else to support their contention that the photos were related to sex or sexual gratification, the police and theOn November 13, the day Richardson police “tossed” or searched Mercado’s house, a caseworker with the Dallas County Child Protective Services Unit of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services took custody of the children and recommended to a family judge that they be placed in a foster home. The caseworker’s notes state that a supervisor, acting on the content of the photos alone, decided that “the children needed to be removed from their mother’s care.”

Her hard-rubbed eyes drooping with worry, Mercado says she told the caseworker, “Please don’t take our children. We love our children.” Dallas County District Attorney’s Office presented the photos to a grand jury in January and came away with indictments against Mercado and Fernandez for “sexual performance of a child,” a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The charges centered on a single photo, the breast-feeding shot. Fernandez and Mercado say they took it–although the child had ceased breast-feeding–to memorialize that stage of their baby’s development.

“We wanted to see if he would take it, and he did,” says Mercado, explaining through an interpreter that it was a spur-of-the moment notion to which they gave little thought. “Johnny never saw the child breast-feeding, so this was for memories. For us.”
In the months since, one of the couple’s most onerous problems has been resolved. In late March, a week after the Dallas Observer asked District Attorney Bill Hill about the case, he ordered the criminal charges against both parents dropped. “It has some gray areas to it, but it doesn’t rise to the level of a crime,” Hill said. He said justice comes from more than isolating facts and interpreting them in a way to make them narrowly fit into a criminal statute.

Still, at press time, child welfare authorities continue to maintain control of the boys, even though a lawyer appointed to represent them says he believes they should go home. In its latest legal filing, the state said it would not consent to releasing the boys until the couple jumps through more hoops, including a lie-detector test they must take at their own expense.

“They ripped out my heart,” Mercado says. “Even if we get them back, I don’t know how we’ll recover from what’s been done.”

“How could they accuse me of doing something with our own children?” says Fernandez, a lanky 35-year-old who worked as a hospital technician in Peru before embarking on his disastrous start in Texas. “How can they accuse us of being something we’re not?”

It wasn’t difficult at all.

For Mercado and her family, last fall was a happy time, one they wanted to record and save in the venerable tradition of the family photo. Johnny Fernandez, Mercado’s boyfriend, had just emigrated from Lima, Peru, ending a yearlong separation, and on top of that, it was their son’s first birthday.

The photographs they took over several days in late October included pictures of Fernandez reunited with the family at their modest home in suburban Richardson. Others captured their 1-year-old son Rodrigo, and 4-year-old Pablizio, from Mercado’s earlier marriage, playing in a neighborhood park. Using the camera’s timer, they also took three snapshots of themselves, naked in their bed. They arranged their bodies in ways that showed less flesh than most freeway billboards.

A half-dozen others recorded the kids at bath time. Fernandez took several photos of the boys “playing around,” naked and innocent, with the oldest flashing a big smile. Mercado, who says she often bathed with the kids, is in several of the shots unclothed from the waist up, holding her arm modestly across her bare chest.

In one–the photo that would threaten to send Mercado and her boyfriend to prison–the infant Rodrigo is suckling her left breast.

After Mercado dropped off the film for processing, a technician viewed the images and decided they were “suspicious,” according to a police report. As required under Texas law, he immediately contacted local police. Mercado says that when she went to pick up her pictures, the clerk told her there would be a delay, and then only returned three of the four sets of prints.

To Richardson police, who arrived at the store that afternoon and apparently made up their minds from the content of the pictures alone, this was nothing short of a felony case of child pornography. “We thought they contained sexuality,” says Sergeant Danny Martin, a Richardson police spokesman, explaining why two Richardson police detectives began pursuing a criminal case. “If you saw the photos, you’d know what I mean.”

With nothing else to support their contention that the photos were related to sex or sexual gratification, the police and theOn November 13, the day Richardson police “tossed” or searched Mercado’s house, a caseworker with the Dallas County Child Protective Services Unit of the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services took custody of the children and recommended to a family judge that they be placed in a foster home. The caseworker’s notes state that a supervisor, acting on the content of the photos alone, decided that “the children needed to be removed from their mother’s care.”

Her hard-rubbed eyes drooping with worry, Mercado says she told the caseworker, “Please don’t take our children. We love our children.” Dallas County District Attorney’s Office presented the photos to a grand jury in January and came away with indictments against Mercado and Fernandez for “sexual performance of a child,” a second-degree felony punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The charges centered on a single photo, the breast-feeding shot. Fernandez and Mercado say they took it–although the child had ceased breast-feeding–to memorialize that stage of their baby’s development.

“We wanted to see if he would take it, and he did,” says Mercado, explaining through an interpreter that it was a spur-of-the moment notion to which they gave little thought. “Johnny never saw the child breast-feeding, so this was for memories. For us.”
In the months since, one of the couple’s most onerous problems has been resolved. In late March, a week after the Dallas Observer asked District Attorney Bill Hill about the case, he ordered the criminal charges against both parents dropped. “It has some gray areas to it, but it doesn’t rise to the level of a crime,” Hill said. He said justice comes from more than isolating facts and interpreting them in a way to make them narrowly fit into a criminal statute.

Still, at press time, child welfare authorities continue to maintain control of the boys, even though a lawyer appointed to represent them says he believes they should go home. In its latest legal filing, the state said it would not consent to releasing the boys until the couple jumps through more hoops, including a lie-detector test they must take at their own expense.

“They ripped out my heart,” Mercado says. “Even if we get them back, I don’t know how we’ll recover from what’s been done.”

“How could they accuse me of doing something with our own children?” says Fernandez, a lanky 35-year-old who worked as a hospital technician in Peru before embarking on his disastrous start in Texas. “How can they accuse us of being something we’re not?”

It wasn’t difficult at all.

The lesson – which was part of a class on the life cycle and how babies are cared for – was designed to demonstrate how natural it is for a mother to nurse her child.

But staff at Hume Central Secondary College in Broadmeadows proved that breastfeeding is still a touchy topic when it cancelled the demonstration.
Principal Glenn Proctor said he had to be “sensitive” to all the nationalities at the school and he felt parental consent was necessary before children could watch a woman breastfeed her baby.

Sarah Simmonds, a volunteer from the Australian Breastfeeding Association’s community education program, had been invited to the school earlier this month with her four-month-old son Billy.

When she and another volunteer arrived staff told them they could demonstrate how to bath the baby but asked her not to breastfeed. “They told me that they hadn’t asked the parents specifically do they mind their children seeing a child breastfed, so because we haven’t asked explicitly we won’t let you do it,” Ms Simmonds said.

“Our message was it’s natural and you can do it anywhere – except here. It was such a mixed message for the kids. We were trying to convey that this is something that every mum should be able to do and every child should have the opportunity to be breastfed and that we shouldn’t have to think about where we are and whether it’s appropriate.”
Social networking site Facebook provoked an international furore last year when it removed pictures of mothers nursing their babies from women’s profiles because they could be deemed “obscene” or “pornographic.”
Karen Ingram, spokeswoman for the Breastfeeding Association, said the association’s education programs had been delivered to up to 100 Australian schools a year for the past 30 years.

“The purpose is to provide awareness of breastfeeding as a normal part of life and nutrition and nurturing a baby,” Ms Ingram said.

But Republican Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry said the numbers tell the story that her cooperative style has made work sites safer since she was elected in 2000. Her style has led companies to ask her agency for help to comply with labor laws, something that wouldn’t happen if they feared the department as an adversary, she said.

The House voted 106-0 on Thursday to direct the Labor Department to report the number of complaints alleging child labor violations, the length of the probes and the number of investigators assigned. The department also would need to report fines and how much was collected.

“It’s basically to look at what is going on in terms of child labor law enforcement” after reports that some managers tell underage employees to perform tasks barred to minors, said the bill’s primary sponsor, Rep. Jennifer Weiss, D-Wake. Examples can include minors operating power saws or meat slicers, or doing roofing work.

On Wednesday, the House voted unanimously to increase some of the country’s lowest penalties for businesses that violate child labor laws. The maximum would double from $250 to $500 for first-time violators, and increase to $1,000 for further violations.

Both measures now move to the Senate.
2006 study by University of North Carolina researchers said of the 16- and 17-year-old North Carolina construction workers studied, more than four out of five did prohibited tasks. The Labor Department’s 2008 annual report said youth employment complaints account for less than 1 percent of all complaints received, and just 15 complaints involved minors in hazardous occupations.