Mom in Hiding Captured in Isolated Stone Hut in Mountain Wilderness

The "Bad" Narrative Prevails

A Finnish mom in hiding with her 7 year-old son was recently captured in a stone hut isolated deep in Spain’s northeastern mountain wilderness.

She was hunkered down in this primitive shelter with no electricity or plumbing, freezing cold at times. It was a mile walk to the nearest store.

The father had reported the mother “abducted” the boy and a warrant was issued.

Interpol [European law enforcement] became involved after receiving reports of a woman in Vega de Pas with a child who was not enrolled in school. Plain-clothed female police were dispatched so the mother would not be alerted to the investigation. They did not want her to have the opportunity to flee.

The mother’s car was found in a nearby town. After many days of searching, the policewomen stealthily descended upon the primitive hut and arrested her.

The boy was sent back to Finland to be forcibly returned to his owner—the father from whom they were trying to escape. This separation from his primary bond at such a young, impressionable age, inevitably caused him severe trauma, not to mention having been placed under the complete control of his father.

The mother was imprisoned in Spain. It is unclear whether she has been extradited back to Finland yet for criminal court proceedings.

There has been very little reporting on this case, but the mother was undoubtedly trying to escape an abusive ex and protect her child. The fact that she would go to such great lengths as to live so isolated in a stone hut with no creature comforts strongly suggests she was desperate to protect him—most likely from sexual abuse. Sexual abuse by fathers is the most common reason mothers take the drastic, life-altering, liberty-risking measure of fleeing into hiding.

TAKEAWAYS

Family courts routinely give custody of children to abusive fathers, often sexually abusive ones. So, mothers taking children into hiding to protect them is not an uncommon phenomenon.

How could this be happening more than a century after women got the vote and a half century after gaining independence from bad marriages?

It was totally predictable, but women did not see it coming and still do not understand what is happening. They walk into family courts around the world every day believing they have the power to keep and protect their children. The fact that judges would deliberately cover up and enable abuse of any kind, much less sexual abuse, is incomprehensible.

But in context it is perfectly comprehensible. Control and entitlement in the family has always been the #1 patriarchal agenda. Now that women can easily leave husbands and live independently, it has become Patriarchy’s Last Stand.

The Family Court system is the main staging grounds for this Last Stand of male entitlement. It is designed specifically so men can maintain power and control over wives and children after separation. It traps women. There is nowhere else they can go.

Women are given the impossible choice: stay and let your children be abused indefinitely, or leave and risk life and liberty.

What is alarming is that nobody blinks an eye when women are caught, deemed “bad” and punished. Nobody questions if she had a good, not to mention very good, reason for being in hiding. Not the women police, not the media, not her own community or the community in which she was hiding. In fact, it appears the people in a neighboring town turned her in.

What underlies this blatant dismissal of women’s assertions their ex is abusive and they are doing what mothers everywhere are expected, and even required, to do: protect their children?

In a word: narratives.

Patriarchal narratives have been created and embedded into social consciousness since day one. Narratives portray women who take actions which challenge male dominance in the family as “mad or bad”: i.e. they are either crazy or vindictive.

In other words, society is being duped by the OBN [old boy network] of old and new. Women in hiding are presumed to be “bad”—maliciously interfering with the indispensable relationship between child and father. Meanwhile, the father is presupposed to be a wonderful guy, incapable of abuse, and victim of this “bad” woman.

Hence it is quite easy for people, having been influenced by these narratives, to be fine with supposedly malicious moms who run with kids being turned in and imprisoned, and the children being given back to their supposedly superduper father.

What is necessary in this 3rd millennium BCE is for these obviously false narratives to be replaced with true ones that match reality, such as:

“A mother who takes the drastic measure of going into hiding with her children is almost certainly doing it because they are ‘good’ [not bad or mad], mothers who are trying to protect them from an abusive father.”

That should be the default narrative. After all, the research supports it, as well as women’s lived experience.

The vast majority of contested custody cases involve abusive fathers—100% if you consider taking custody away from loving mothers abusive. And the vast majority of cases in which mothers give up everything and go into hiding to protect children involve fathers who are sexually abusing their children.

The research shows an astounding one quarter of children are sexually abused, a large majority by fathers. Women contact the Coalition regularly saying they’ve been unable to protect their children from sexual abuse. In a recent survey, 26% of custody cases involved mothers trying—and failing—to protect their children from sexual abuse by the father.

Additionally, it’s only common sense that mothers would not take such drastic measures unless their child is being sexually, or otherwise severely, abused. They are well-aware of the serious, long-term psychological damage it causes and want to do whatever they can to prevent it.

Hence, the prevailing narrative in society and law should be that any mother who says she is keeping children away from the father because he is abusive should be presumed to be doing so, especially mothers who go into hiding. If that were the case, mothers like this Finnish mom, would be believed and supported by the community. She would not be sitting in prison after giving up everything to protect her son.

But changing the ancient narratives of “mad or bad” will only happen if women join together—as half the population—and take their power to keep and protect their children back—the power they had before patriarchy took hold.

Join us in fighting for the power to keep and protect our children after separation.

NOTE: If anyone has any info or knows who this Finnish mother is, please email womenscoalitionintl@gmail.com. We will post updates as we receive them.

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IN OTHER NEWS

SISTERS IN SOLIDARITY

We had a great SIS forum yesterday with lots of discussion about how the mother is children’s primary attachment figure and therefore it is in children’s best interest for her to retain primary custody after separation.

Thanks to all the mothers who participated. Looking forward to our June forum!

If you’d like to join SIS, please read this column and fill out the linked form. You will receive an invitation to the zoom a few days before.

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CHAPTER 17 IS OUT!

“Escape from Accountability” is Chapter 17 of Mother-Fucking: The Saga of One Fucked Mother. [This chapter is too long for a newsletter so the second part will be posted next week.]

In this chapter, Herry has moved out as per Legion’s request after discovering his latest affair. She believes that Herry will attempt to deal with his sex addiction so he can come back and be a better husband and father. Unbeknownst to her he has other ideas. Herry uses Alcoholics Anonymous [AA] in his scheme. Legion blasts AA for enabling men like Herry who have sexual addictions, and Al-Anon [Family Groups] for duping wives and keeping them dependent on and deferential to their otherwise addicted and abusive husbands.

In the last chapter, Legion’s patience for Herry’s abuse and infidelity has run out and she finally tells him he has to leave until and unless he puts effort into changing his ways. Fear of her boys becoming like him gives her the courage to act. The stress causes a stint of sleeplessness which is pathologized by the mental health system and which will be weaponized against her later in Family Court. Legion muses how women over the centuries have been called crazy and witches for their reactions to men’s oppression.

Dr. Blue’s novel is based on her own experience of the Custody Crisis. It uniquely conveys how Family Court judges are “mother-fucking” women—a form of systemic violence directed at ex-wives—as protagonist Legion is systematically and methodically deprived of her children, career and money and reduced to “one fucked mother”.

Chapters are stand-alone interesting so you can begin reading anywhere. A Cast of Characters follows to help readers at any point. All published chapters are included in the Section: “The Saga of One F**ked Mother” accessible on the top bar of the home page: Women’s Coalition News & Views. Sequential chapters are published every Wednesday and subscribers will find them in their inboxes, so make sure to subscribe if you haven’t yet!

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You may also give a gift subscription to a mother who is going through her own Family Court nightmare and doesn’t understand why.

Or you can support the Coalition’s work through a one-time or recurring contribution at paypal.me/TheWomensCoalition.

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