Women who have been raped often have a very difficult road ahead of them. When the rape leads a pregnancy, the difficulty is increased. After the child is born, some women have to worry about their rapist trying to seek parental rights. A new law in Colorado protects women from this type of child custody issue.
The new law enables women who were raped and became pregnant to file a petition to terminate the parental rights of their attacker. This means that women who were raped will no longer have to face the man who violated her at child custody meetings or visitations.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation has recently issued a report that says rape increased by 41 percent from 2012 to 2013. This increase is due at least in part to sexual assault with an object and forcible sodomy being added to the list of offenses that are counted for this statistic.
With that increase in rape crimes, even if it is because of new crimes being added to the list, it is easy to see why the dangerous loophole in the law needed to be fixed. The women who were raped deserve to know that they won’t have to keep facing the man who forced himself upon her. They also deserve to know that their children won’t be subjected to seeing the rapist.
Anyone who has been raped and became pregnant should be aware of their rights regarding child custody. Knowing how to protect the child can often help the women to feel more secure as they work through the issues resulting from the rape.
Source: KKTV, “New Colorado Law Protects Rape Victims,” Kristin Haubrich, July 2, 2014
