Pune, Bangalore NGOs to work for shared parenting

Seeking to eliminate parental alienation of children of separated and divorced parents, a Bangalore-based NGO Saturday said it has joined hands with the city's Men's Rights Association (MRA) to work against gender-biased laws.

"Children's Rights Initiative for Shared Parenting, Bangalore and MRA, Pune will jointly take forward the cause for children who suffer on account of their estranged parents due to increasing separation or divorce cases," CRISP president Kumar V. Jahgirdar told IANS.

With a strong presence in Mumbai, Delhi, Nagpur, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and other cities, Jahgirdar hopes that the Pune chapter with MRA would help mitigate the sufferings of men who are at a disadvantage owing to gender-biased laws.

"We are a pro-family and pro-life NGO engaged in promoting social harmony and comprise people from all walks of life like IT, medical, teaching and business who have been deprived of children's love due to the anti-father mindset prevalent in our society," said MRA president Mahesh Shinde.

Usually, in divorce cases, one of vengeful parents deprives the child of the love, affection and care of the other parents which is a form of child abuse, he said.

As a result kids suffer from consequences of permanent psychological damage due to the parental alienation syndrome and reactive associative disorders, in which they don't establish healthy bonds with others, Shinde said.

Citing studies, he cautioned that such children tend to become criminals later in life for which society itself is responsible, unless shared parenthood is properly permitted.

One of the measures suggested was setting up of special courts to dispose of child custody cases within six months and Supreme Court guidelines on the issue, Jahgirdar said.