The greatest cause of homelessness in America for women is divorce. Although women are making higher salaries, their salaries are still not equal to their male counterparts. When women are faced with divorce their resources often take on a different dynamic. Because women often start out with fewer resources, they end up with fewer resources. Family courts and guardians ad litem are becoming more and more anti-woman in divorce and child custody cases. A number of female Federal employees are re-evaluating their retirement plans because of having to pay child support to their ex-spouses because the spouse has custodial custody of the children.
Virginia appears to be a state that is not friendly towards women in child-custody cases according to a coalition of Federally-employed women involved in custody cases in the state. Even before a hearing takes place, if the father takes the children out of the home and refuses to return the children to the mother, the unspoken and unwritten law in the state allows the father to keep the children. It was alleged by one member of the coalition that in open court an attorney told his client – the father – that it was ok that he kidnapped the children. Mothers are fighting for their children who were taken from their homes by the father of the children and never returned. The law did not order the children returned to the home, but did stipulate that a Federally employed mother had to pay child support to an ex-spouse who kidnapped her children in the state.
Women are a growing segment of the homeless population followed by women and children. The predicament female federal employees find themselves in is apparent. The number of older women working in retail is increasing everyday. Sadly these are not women who are just past retirement age but well beyond. These women are not working because they want to but because they have to. There may be cases where children might be better off with their fathers but due process should be the rule of law when making decisions about children’s lives. It is very unfortunate that Virginia has not earned a reputation for being fair where women are concerned atleast by a number of women involved in court battles in the State of Virginia.
The average woman all over the United States will have less to live on in retirement than men of equal pay status for one simple fact – men are paid more than women for the same job. It is time women receive equal pay. The Lilly Ledbetter Act supposedly evened the playing field, but women have a long way to go to achieve equal justice and equal pay in the U.S.A.
P. S. Always Remember to Share What You Know.
Dianna Tafazoli
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