In family courts around the country, judges are punishing protective parents who think it's not a swell idea for their abusive exes to have unfettered and unsupervised access to their children after a divorce. What sense does it make that the survivor parent gets to be free while the children do not?

Protective parents, like Rachel Pickrel-Hawkins out of Colorado, are threatened, silenced and even jailed if they protest or dare to speak out publically about this injustice. Rachel, now out of jail and with her kids safe-ish, wants to tell us what happened in her own words and we're only too happy to give her the microphone. Remember that while Rachel's case received national attention, so many other survivors' stories never do.

Apologies for the audio snafu around the 50-minute mark. It was mistakenly left in, so alas, it stays. #reallife

Do you want to tell your story on Toxic? Or, do you have a story you think we need to discuss or a guest we should have on? Visit us at ToxicthePodcast.com and tell us all about it.

As always, if you are experiencing abuse or domestic violence, please consider disclosing to someone you trust. You can also reach out to a trained domestic violence advocate—find one near you at DomesticShelters.org.

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