Submitted by Anonymous

I have worked as a counselor in a domestic violence shelter in the Midwest for more than five years. I enjoyed my job when it was legitimate, when I was helping an actual victim of domestic violence overcome their past, their trauma, and move on with their lives.

However, day-by-day, week-by-week, it became more and more obvious that the business of domestic violence and my belief in what the true goal of our shelter should be were two very different animals.

The business of domestic violence is exactly that - a business only concerned with numbers, statistics, and money (generally in the form of donations). I believe this is incredibly detrimental to actual victims of domestic violence.

These shelters also make it extremely tempting to people to lie about abuse in order to present themselves as a victim of domestic violence so they would qualify for shelter care.

Thus, I have agreed to write a series of articles for MensRights.com from the viewpoint of someone who was actually there on the inside to expose the truth of what goes on in a domestic violence shelter.

Paying child support can be a frustrating experience, especially when the child is not biologically yours. A CBS article reported a Dallas man was jailed because it was alleged he owed more than $50,000 in unpaid child support to a child that turned out was not his.

The passing of a new Texas paternity law that gives men who doubt paternity a chance to file a claim allowed the man to contest the accusation that he was the biological father. After a DNA paternity test disproved the claim of paternity, the man was released from jail.

As a specialist in cross-border child custody disputes who has provided expert testimony on parental kidnapping for 15 years, Mauren Dabbagh is not only well-versed professionally, but she also has a personal connection to the issue.

Dabbagh’s daughter was abducted and taken to the Middle East by her ex-husband. She had no communication with her daughter for 17 years until they were reunited in 2010.

In her 15 years handling parental kidnapping cases both professionally and personally, Dabbagh said she has seen the country’s "antiquated" and "barbaric" laws demonize the male gender by reducing men to "sperm banks and child support checks."

That unfortunately popular and destructive mentality and the growing dynamic of "abusive apologetics" are featured in Dabbagh's book, "Parental Kidnapping in America: An Historical and Cultural Analysis."

Jill Egizii and Family Law Judge Michele Lowrance have teamed together to create the workbook "Parental Alienation 911," which is a compilation of research, expert interviews and solutions to apply to real cases.

Jill is an alienated mother and the President of the Parental Alienation Awareness Organization, and Michele has been a Domestic Relations Judge since 1995 and frequently appears on nationally syndicated TV and radio shows.

You can learn more about their work and their book by visiting the "Parental Alienation 911" website. A video of their interview is available at the bottom of this article.

By Daniel Lambert

Cordell & Cordell Family Law Attorney

Each state will have its own laws and regulations governing paternity and child support.

Where I practice, child support is set in paternity actions pursuant to each party's income and the placement/visitation schedule awarded to each party. Child support only becomes effective through an order of the court. If there is no court order for child support, then a party would have to request child support.

It is not possible in some states to waive child support entirely. It is possible to deviate from the set child support schedules established by the state guidelines that require payment, though.

When it comes to domestic violence awareness, most of the attention is paid to abused women. But readers of MensRights.com know all too well how prevalent domestic violence against men is.

You also know how false allegations of abuse are being used against you, primarily for strategic legal reasons. MensRights.com editor Matt Allen discussed the issue of domestic violence against men in divorce and child custody cases with Cordell & Cordell mens divorce attorney Heather Biagi.

By Sara Pitcher

Cordell & Cordell Noblesville, Indiana Divorce Lawyer

Incarceration may be grounds for modifying your child support obligation. Your modified child support obligation would likely be based on your actual income while you are incarcerated, including any funds available to you for paying support.

The Indiana Supreme Court case of Lambert v. Lambert stated that the father's pre-incarceration income could not be imputed to him for the purposes of calculating his child support obligation for the period of time during which he was to be incarcerated.

Fathers Rights To Visitation Question:

My ex-wife and I live on different coasts of the country. We are expected to split transportation costs when my children come live with me for several weeks a few times a year.

Obviously it is not cheap, and my ex-wife is refusing to make travel arrangements because she said she cannot afford the travel expenses. So I agreed to pay the full costs this one time, but now she is saying I cannot come to where she lives and take the children. I think she is hiding behind the transportation costs as a way to deny my visitation rights to see my children.

Can I bring the court order with me and show the law enforcement in her state that it is my right to have the children during my parenting time? Will one state's law enforcement abide by and support a court order entered in another state? How are fathers rights protected in these instances?

It's not uncommon for a grandparent's access to their grandchildren to be thwarted by divorce and even family disputes. The issue of grandparents' rights to visitation was recently heard by the Alabama Supreme Court in a case where the grandparents’ rights were declined even when the grandchild's parents were still married.

The married couple denied the grandparents' access to the child on account of a business dispute. The grandparents sued for regular access to the grandchildren and successfully won visitation rights.

Japan is called "a black hole" where once abducted children enter, they never return. No one knows this painful reality better than Paul Toland, a left-behind parent whose daughter, Erika, was abducted to Japan in 2003 and has been held there since.

Toland is a commander in the U.S. Navy, has testified before Congress (pictured) on this issue, and co-founded the organization Bring Abducted Children Home, which is dedicated to the immediate return of internationally abducted children who are being wrongfully detained in Japan.

He talked with MensRights.com editor Matt Allen about his organization, his thwarted attempts to see his daughter, and why the United States continues to tolerate this type of behavior from Japan.