Child Physical/Sexual Abuse and Pornography

[THIS LANGUAGE WAS FROM OREGON WHERE THE BEST INTEREST FACTORS DON’T LIST THIS AS SOMETHING TO CONSIDER. CHECK ‘HOW WILL A JUDGE MAKE A DECISION ABOUT CUSTODY?’ IN HER STATE. IF CHILD ABUSE IS INCLUDED, EDIT THIS SENTENCE ACCORDINGLY TO EXPLAIN AND HYPERLINK TO IT: In terms of how STATE laws would address the issue of child sexual abuse, that isn’t specifically included in the list of “best interest factors” that the law says the judge will look at. However, it does have a catchall for “any other factors that the judge decides are relevan​t,” which presumably would include abuse of a child.]

However, proving that a child was sexually abused is often hard. And there can be negative consequences if the judge doesn’t believe the parent who raises this. Unfortunately, when a mother makes an allegation against the other parent in court without substantial proof of the sexual abuse, this often backfires against the mother according to a 2020 study by a well-known professor and domestic violence advocate named Joan S. Meier who did a study on this in the courts. She found that “The findings confirm that mothers’ claims of abuse, especially child physical or sexual abuse, increase their risk of losing custody…” You can read the whole study on this outside website that publishes it. I mention this to say that if you are going to be making accusations of child sexual abuse, you would want to try to get an attorney who has experience with this and who understands how to present the evidence in such a way that hopefully does not end up harming the mother’s custody case. We link to lawyers, including free legal services on our website [HYPERLINK]. We also have a list of questions that someone can ask an attorney when interviewing them to gauge their experience with domestic violence and custody, although not specifically with child sexual abuse allegations.