The System Is The Weapon
Natalie Page’s new book, The System Is The Weapon, is out now - a powerful examination of how family courts can be weaponised against survivors and children through post-separation abuse, coercive control, and institutional failure
Leaving abuse should not mean entering another form of it.
In The System Is The Weapon: How Abusive Fathers Exploit Family Courts Against Mothers and Children, Natalie Page examines how family court systems can become sites of ongoing coercive control - where litigation, institutional failures, and unsafe assumptions continue to harm survivors and children long after separation.
Drawing on her own nine-year experience navigating the family courts, frontline casework with thousands of mothers, and years of advocacy and campaigning, Natalie explores the hidden realities of post-separation abuse and the devastating impact it can have on families.
The book tackles themes including:
coercive litigation and post-separation abuse
the weaponisation of “parental alienation”
mother-blaming and institutional denial
child safety within family courts
the urgent need for trauma-informed reform
At a time when conversations around violence against women and girls, coercive control, and institutional accountability are growing louder, The System Is The Weapon adds to a wider movement demanding systems that protect - not punish - those fleeing abuse.
This is not just a critique of the system. It is a demand to rethink what justice, safety, and accountability should actually look like.
Because systems meant to protect should never become part of the harm.
Natalie Page is a campaigner, investigator and leading voice on family justice reform whose work has helped drive national conversations around post-separation abuse, coercive control, and child safety. Drawing on her own experience navigating the family courts, alongside years of frontline advocacy and investigation, her work has contributed to growing scrutiny of parental alienation theory, institutional failures, and the treatment of survivors within the family justice system.
