They were the losers in custody battles waged in Clark County Family Court.
On Wednesday, a small group of mothers and fathers who have had access to their children denied or restricted rallied together to highlight their cause, making shared and equal custody of children a legal given in Nevada.
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"It's too late for me," said Amira Chalamish, who lost all contact with her teenage son three years ago after she said her ex-husband accused her in court of abusing the child. "But I said I would help."
Chalamish, a bookkeeper, said the accusations were false. But because her former spouse had money, a good attorney and witnesses who Chalamish claimed lied on his behalf, he was able to obtain a no-contact order that bars her from being with her son, now 16, she said.
The sign Chalamish carried in front of family court summarized her grief: "You legalized my ex-husband stealing my son."
Sean Evans, a gay father struggling with custody issues involving his son, has founded a new support group to raise awareness about the problems faced by children and adults involved in custody disputes. In addition to lobbying to make equal custody the norm, Evans wants to raise awareness about the damage that happens when one parent decides to use a child as a weapon against the other parent, a tactic called parental alienation.
"All I ever wanted was equal time with my son," said Evans, whose fight for access to his son was tangled in acrimony, a criminal conviction of coercion, which he said was based on a false accusation from his former spouse, and jail time.
"She told my son I was dead," Evans said.
As founder of PASSAGE, which stands for Paternal Alienation Syndrome Support Awareness Group and Education, Evans wants to help others who have been scarred in custody battles.
Ronald Lawrence, who heads the Community Counseling Center of Las Vegas, is both a marriage counselor and family therapist. He's serving as a professional resource to Evans' new group and shares the goal of raising awareness about the damage caused by parental alienation.
In his work, he has dealt with children traumatized by being the bone of contention, parents who lie about their former spouses to gain the upper hand in a court fight, and mothers and fathers trying to recover from the loss of contact with their children.
"Parental alienation is a real issue," Lawrence said. "I've seen newly single parents who love their children have the last piece of their heart ripped out because of this. The last crushing blow is the loss of their child."
In Nevada, divorcing couples with children are required to take a class about how to help children cope with divorce. The problem, Lawrence said, is that even after taking the course, some people will still put their own bitterness and resentment ahead of the well-being of their kids.
That's when one parent might start bad-mouthing the other in front of a child or start playing games with visitation. The ill will might even lead to false accusations of abuse made by one parent against another in front of a judge. Lawrence has seen that happen in his practice.
"When I see a parent try to alienate a child against the other parent, what I tell them is that what they're doing is really traumatizing the child, not the ex-spouse," Lawrence said. "Their job is to let the resentments of the past slip into the past and put the best interests of the child first."
PASSAGE meets at 6:30 p.m. on Mondays at The Center, 953 E. Sahara Ave., Suite B-31.
