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In family law, visitation is an American term for what is called access in Canada and in at least several European countries. Generally speaking, visitation or access is a privilege granted to a non-custodial parent, and is considered to be a short-term form of custody in which the parent has time to develop a better relationship with the child. It is usually considered a privilege for the parent.
Parents (and in some jurisdictions grand-parents) frequently believe that they have a right to visitation or access; however, courts in several countries have held that this privilege is determined by what is in the best interests of the child and promotes healthy development of the child — except in the case of a parent who has severe psychological problems that may prohibit him or her from having an ongoing relationship with their child.
Visitation may be supervised (i.e. there may be a social worker, psychologist or other neutral third party present while the non-custodial parent visits with the child) to insure that there is no child abuse or offensive behavior on the part of the parent.
Most parents have visitation orders that allow the child to visit with them without any supervision. These visits often take place away from the custodial residence, without the permission of the custodial parent. Often the non-custodial parent is granted overnight visitation, weekend visitation or vacation visitation.
Parents may also share custody and may agree to allow visitation. In these situations a court order may not be needed, though sometimes it is obtained to forstall later disputes about what the parents had previously agreed to, and to allow the courts to have some oversight over the children (which they normally have under statute and under the parens patriae power).
Legal aspects
Japan
In Japan, there is no legal guarantee of visitation by a non-custodial parent. Despite this, courts do often grant visitation rights to a non-custodial parent of a divorce, or to the father of an unwed child, who by law is declared non-custodial by default. However, these court ordered visitations are often only for several hours once a month, and in some cases, only once a year. Further, courts will not enforce these visitation provisions when the custodial parent is not cooperative. Several groups are working to change related laws and provide more detailed information on these laws and alternatives:
The Children's Rights Network of Japan (English) (http://www.crnjapan.com)
The Fathers' Website (Japanese) (http://www.fatherswebsite.com)
Other usages of the word
In English history, a visitation was an official visit, usually for purposes of inspection, and the record of that visit. Visitations were made to establish the right of a person to bear arms, and are used today in genealogical research. These visit are usually titled according to the year they were made (e.g. Visitation of 1345), and the genealogical information contained in them is often erroneous.
The Visitation is a Catholic feast day (2 July) commemorating the visit of the Virgin Mary to Elizabeth as recounted in Luke.
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