Family Law: ‘Intractable’ contact disputes: the politics and the reality

In recent years there has been considerable discussion of the issues of the ’intractable’ contact dispute in which one parent alleges that the parent with residence of the child is preventing or obstructing contact and, crucially, that the courts are unable, or unwilling, to enforce contact orders leaving the non-resident parent frustrated and without a remedy. Such an argument is usually articulated by fathers and fathers’/mens’ rights groups have pushed this issue to the forefront of public debate. This project seeks to establish an empirical basis for these ‘intractable’ disputes by establishing data about them, including the parties’ explanations for the dispute, as well as exploring the politics of the public debate about the issue, divided as it generally is on gender lines.