Hawaii

Arrived this morning...


By Paul Curtis - The Garden Island

Published:...September 14, 2009 2:10 AM HST

LIHU`E —...someone who knows a flawed system when she is ensnared in one feels the need for "sunlight" on the problem on Kaua`i...

Jonea Schillaci-Lavergne,...followed her daughter to Kaua`i to be close to her and has organized...rallies to raise awareness of...problems in the state-run system designed to protect Hawai`i's youngest, most-vulnerable residents.

"...the public really needs to be more informed about what's going on on Kaua`i,...abuse should not be kept a secret. We have to put the sunlight on the problem."

The name of her group is the Kaua`i Angels, patterned after the Maui Angels, a similar group of concerned adults on Maui who are pushing for...reform on the Valley Isle.

While Schillaci-Lavergne's...rally,...in front of the...courthouse..., started,...people joined in at the Kapule Highway-Ahukini Road intersection near the entrance to Lihu`e Airport, and well-wishers honked their horns at...sign-holders...

Gatherings are also planned at...sections of...highways,...the day the group also plans to meet with Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr...

The purpose...is to inform the community that...the Kaua`i Family Court and its court-appointed experts are not doing enough to protect children from abuse and...violence...

Child...abuse,...has become a national epidemic, and judges spend more time ignoring and suppressing facts and...evidence than investigating and prosecuting perpetrators...

Marsha Kitagawa, a spokesperson for the state Judiciary, said state judges are prohibited under the Revised Code of Judicial Conduct from making public statements that "might reasonably be expected to affect the outcome or impair the fairness of a matter pending or impending in any court."

Schillaci-Lavergne is undeterred. "I've seen so much...suffering going on. It's a problem everywhere,"...

"It's not a fun subject. I didn't choose it,"...of...cause to let people know about...the broken..system she says protects the abuser, sometimes just to punish the protective parent who reports the abuse.

A group of concerned parents who were unable to protect their children from abuse gathered and demanded a state audit of the Maui Family Court,...about the origins of the Maui Angels.

The Kaua`i Angels are asking that...cases be properly investigated and that the protective parents be allowed due process in court to fight for and protect their children from abuse...

Approximately one in three girls and one in five boys will be...abused...by age 18.

"These statistics are unacceptable for our children and, as a community, we need to end this problem immediately"...

Dara Carlin, who holds a master's degree and has spent 20 years as a child and family therapist on O`ahu, said what's happening in Hawai`i is both "disillusioning and disheartening."

She also totally understands that, culturally, because of the shame brought on families by the offenses, people are sometimes reluctant to come forward and admit that they have been or are being abused...

Ernest Sisca, a Wailua Homesteads resident and one of the half-dozen men who gathered at the courthouse, said he came to support Schillaci-Lavergne, who gave up her California home and career in order to be close to her daughter.

Copyright © 2009 - Kauai Publishing Company

http://www.angelgroup.org/component/content/article/22-what-were-doing/185-kauai-rally


"Angels" on Kauai successfully rallied on September 10 & 17, 2009; eliciting the support of the community who honked horns and shouted out, "Good for you", "It's about time somebody did something!", "Something definitely needs to be done!", and "Save our children!"

...These gender-neutral rallies were created to bring attention to...Court's indifference in addressing substantiated allegation of...abuse against children and the misappropriation of custody to the "abuser"; resulting in the railroading and eradication of the parent who "reports" on behalf of the child(ren) and/or takes action to protect them.

http://www.angelgroup.org/images/pdfs/090909_press_release.pdf