An act of courage submission for the 1000 Acts of Courage campaign – a community-building conscious action campaign collecting one thousand courageous acts for the well-being, empowerment, and equity of girls and women

Several years ago it took courage for me to appear in court for the mother of a client who had alleged having been physically abused by her young daughter’s biological father. The court battle was over whether the father should be entitled to unsupervised visitation with his daughter, my client who at the time was around the age of 6. My intention was to inform the court of how it is that violence against a pregnant mother can have a damaging impact on the unborn fetus. This was relevant because during the time of the abuse, the mother was pregnant with my client. s

It took particular courage because the father had somehow prior to the court appearances, secured my personal information such as private home phone number and home address. The history had revealed that this was an aggressive man who did not want his efforts to obtain unsupervised visits with his daughter interfered with. There was also some evidence that he had sexually molested his daughter (my client) when she was at or under the age of 4.

In spite of his history, I made the decision that I had no choice but to tell the judge and the court what I knew about the potential emotional and psychological damage he could do to my client and her mother. Because of that, I strongly argued in court against allowing unsupervised visits between her and her dad. 

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