paPPa.com informiert:
PARENTS FOREVER INTERNATIONAL was officially founded on the 21st of May 1986 when its statute was published in the moniteur belge in Brussels, Belgium.
On the 26th September 1983 a number of European associations defending the rights of fathers and their children met in PARIS, France with a view to studying ways of combating the systematic discrimination of fathers and their children in the divorce courts of Europe. This historic meeting led to the setting up of the INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP [GROUPE DE TRAVAIL INTERNATIONAL] «to defend children's and fathers' rights».
The first official meeting of the INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP was held in Brussels on the 10th and 11th December 1983. The most important decision of the INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP during this important meeting was to organise an international conference to promote parental equality.
It was decided to hold this first conference of the INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP in BRUSSELS, Belgium in April 1984 under the name of DADDY 1 - Égalité Parental. For the first time in Europe, a definition of " the interest of the child ", other than that imposed by the law courts, was being voiced. For the first time fathers were standing up, firm against the official policy of paternal exclusion. For the first time fathers dared to demand that they be considered as equal partners in divorce and separation as in marriage.
The success of Daddy 1 led to the realisation that a large number of father's defence organisations existed throughout Europe. It also became obvious that paternal exclusion had become the norm in all spheres of society. Judges, politicians and social workers, all of whom pretend to defend the interests of children, were, and still are, determined to separate children from their fathers. It was then realised that the INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP had reached its organisational limits.
The call came in from many countries in Europe for a new organisation which would be more able to cope with the multi-professional abuse of Human Rights on an international scale.
INTERNATIONAL WORKING GROUP called a meeting in Odense, Norway on the 5th May 1985 to set up the new organisation. It was on this momentous day that fathers, united, decided to fight back against the iniquitous decisions of the so-called democratic justice of the developed world (sic) and PARENTS FOREVER INTERNATIONAL was born.
In the debates that followed it soon became clear that PARENTS FOREVER INTERNATIONAL had to find ways of developing a new social/political order which would respect their rights as fathers and allow them to accept their responsibilities as parents. One of the first decisions of PARENTS FOREVER INTERNATIONAL was to promote Family Mediation across Europe.
First came a meeting in CAMBRIDGE, Great Britain on the 12th November 1986 hosted by FAMILIES NEED FATHERS -FNF to study the implications of this revolutionary principle. Although the idea of Family Mediation began in Canada, it was at its very beginnings in Great Britain which, at that time, was the only country in Europe trying to find ways to solve the problem of parental equality during and after the separation of parents. Canada and Great Britain are still the only countries in the world to allow parents systematic access to a family mediation service before the beginning of judicial procedures in the case of divorce or separation.
THE FIRST WORLD CONFERENCE ON FAMILY MEDIATION was held in Geneva, Switzerland on the 1st October 1988 to promote family mediation. Many countries sent delegations to discover, some for the first time, the advantages of family mediation for separating parents. At the end of the conference a petition was signed by those present and sent to all European governments asking them to set up of Family Mediation Centres, where parents, including fathers, could decide for themselves how to lead their own lives as normal parents without having unacceptable decisions imposed upon them by pretentious national institutions which have long lost the Human dimension.
The resounding success of PARENTS FOREVER INTERNATIONAL, in such a short time, led to the granting of a royal charter by King Baudouin of Belgium on the 7th August 1988 "to found an international association to defend the rights and interests of children and their parents throughout the world".
PARENTS FOREVER INTERNATIONAL has already achieved great deal but there is still much to be done. Politicians, comfortably installed on their backsides, don't wake up until they feel their power base beginning to rock and it is up to us, the fathers, with PARENTS FOREVER INTERNATIONAL to give that power base a hefty shove.