Woman plans walk to help children placed in custody of abusers

An advocate for abused children is organizing a 40-day walk across the Trail of Tears to draw attention to the plight of families where children have been placed into the custody of their abusers.

Wendy Titelman of New Orleans is looking for volunteers who want to help with the 518-mile walk that will begin June 20 in Cape Girardeau and end July 20 in Atlanta.

Titelman said that children are properly taught to tell a grownup when they are physically or sexually abused, and parents are taught to protect their children from abuse. But when the legal system becomes involved, she said, things can fall apart because judges, attorneys, guardians ad litem and others involved in family court cases are sometimes not sufficiently trained.

Titelman founded Kourts for Kids based in New Orleans to increase awareness and education about a situation she referred to as "parental alienation syndrome."

"If a mother tries to protect her child from an abusive father and the family court gets involved," she said, "many times the child is taken from the mother and put into the custody of the abusive father. The court doesn't want to believe that a father would do something so horrible to his own child, and so tends to believe that the mother is an angry and malicious woman who is lying to gain custody of the child."

She calls parental alienation syndrome "junk science."

Titelman said it happened to her. She said she has not seen her daughters, ages 10 and 12, for three and a half years. Her former husband, whom she accuses of sexually abusing the girls, has custody.

The march is officially titled "Let My Children Go! Journey on the Trail of Tears." It is for mothers who believe the legal system has failed them and their families.

Titelman said the Trail of Tears was chosen in February after she and some other women were discussing how to get the message out and one woman suggested following the Trail of Tears. Titelman said she found many connections between the Trail of Tears and her own case. The Trail of Tears began in Georgia where her case against her husband is being heard. The original Trail of Tears walk began as a result of the courts failing the American Indians who lived on some land in Georgia where gold was discovered, and the current walk is a result of women feeling the courts have failed them. Mothers on the original walk cried over lost children who died along the forced march; modern-day mothers also cry for lost children. Moreover, Titelman was born in Missouri and is part Cherokee, but mostly the choice is symbolic, she said.

Titelman said she has already heard from one mother who said she is in a wheelchair as a result of domestic abuse and who plans to join the march.

"She said she will come with her oxygen and her wheelchair" and keep going "until her battery runs down," Titelman said.

Titelman said she hopes people who work with women's shelters and abused children will contact her and become involved in the activities that will take place along with the march.

"I'm hoping this very peaceful march will raise awareness to make changes in the courts so children will not be harmed," she said.

For more information about the march, Titelman can be reached at Kourts for Kids' toll-free number: (888) 696-5437. For further information, log onto www.wendytitelman. com or www.smalljustice.com. Brochures will be available next week outlining the event.

lredeffer@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 160