News

Now the children have emerged to tell their painful story. by Olivia Gentile (Insider)

A family court judge had put Maya and Sebastian in the sole custody of their mother, even though they’d both accused her of abuse and wanted to stay with their father. The judge had also ordered the children into a treatment program for “parental alienation” and authorized an transport company to take them by force.They were then placed in the sole custody of their mother. They ran away and are now talking about what happened to them at the reunification camp. Maya said that when she and Sebastian raised their abuse allegations with therapists at the reunification program who they say called them liars and threatened them. Maya said they were told that if they didn’t start telling the truth, they’d have to go “somewhere else” where necessities like blankets and food could be withheld. Maya said they were also warned that they could be separated from each other and kept from their father for years. For the remainder of the workshop, Maya said, the therapists focused on how the children had hurt their mom, how pathological this behavior was, and how they could make amends. The clinicians tried to get the children to blame their father, Maya said, but they refused.

 The next 3 ½ years were hell. by Olivia Gentile (Insider)
Account by a young man foreced into reunification with an emotionally abusive father. “The workshop doesn’t repair anything — it just forces you back into a situation where you’re afraid. It’s forced compliance through fear….When I was 17, my dad told me I had to go to court and testify against my mom, and claim that I wanted to live with my dad forever. And I didn’t want to do that, so I ran away. Certain things trigger me. If I’m watching a television show and there’s an abusive parent, I’ll start sweating and get very angry….I have debilitating panic attacks and night terrors. And the problem is, I can’t even go see a therapist about them because I can’t even be in a room with a therapist.“

 The Children Say It Was Abusive. by Hannah Dreyfus (Propublica) After years of therapy, the boys continued to report they were being harmed by their father and violently resisted visitation with him. They were sent to a reunification camp that claims to remedy parental alienation, a disputed psychological theory in which one parent is accused of brainwashing a child to turn them against the other parent. Reunification programs allow overburdened family court judges to outsource some of that difficult decision-making: An order to participate effectively transfers to the person running the camp the power to decide if and when a parent can contact their child, regardless of the court’s previous custody rulings. This transfer of power generally lasts from the time the court order is issued until the camp director determines the treatment has been successful.

A judge gave the stepdad custody anyway. Then she found the photographs. How the ‘junk science’ of parental alienation infiltrated American family courts and allowed accused child abusers to win custody of their kids. by Olivia Gentile (Insider)
In the summer of 2020, when he was 12, Robert told his therapist something he’d never told anyone else.  For years, Robert claimed, his stepdad had sexually abused him. The step-father camed that the accusations weren’t evidence that he’d abused the boy, rather they were evidence that the boy’s mother had poisoned the children against him. He was causing the children such grave psychological harm, he claimed in the filing, that Robert and his younger sisters should be transferred to his custody right away. The court agreed despite CPS finding the claims to credible. Robert was put into a reunification camp, where he says he became suicidal. After being placed in the sole custody of his step-father, Robert began to have panic attacks and was later placed into a psychiatric hospital. After losing her children, the mother found thousands of explicit images of children, including Robert, her ex-husband that taken. She turned them over to law enforcement. Her ex-husband was soon charged with 19 felonies, including possession of child pornography and 14 counts of committing forcible lewd acts against a child, Robert. Suddenly, the custody dispute was transferred to juvenile dependency court, which meant Ratekin was no longer presiding. The new judge ordered the kids into their mother’s care while the case was pending. On February 18, they came home. At first, Montes said, the two youngest children were so scared of being taken again that they couldn’t sleep in their rooms. In addition, five years of legal bills have left the family in debt and on food stamps.

(Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences, Reem Alsalem. (2023, Apr. 13). Custody, violence against women and violence against children. United Nations Human Rights Council.)
The report demonstrates how the discredited and unscientific pseudo-concept of parental alienation is used in family law proceedings by abusers as a tool to continue their abuse and coercion and to undermine and discredit allegations of domestic violence made by mothers who are trying to keep their children safe. It also shows how the standard of the best interest of the child is violated by imposing contact between a child and one or both parents and by prioritizing it, even where there is evidence of domestic violence. Predominantly as a result of the lack of training and gender bias and of access to legal support, the custody of children may be awarded to perpetrators of violence, despite evidence of a history of domestic and/or sexual abuse. The consequences of biased custody decisions can be catastrophic, resulting in specific incidents when contact has been awarded to fathers with a violent history,38 in the death of children and women and children being placed at gunpoint.39 In some cases, women have been imprisoned for violating custodial rights and protective restraining orders have been overturned.

They Say Abused Them by Hannah Dreyfus (Propublica)
Two siblings in Utah have barricaded themselves in a bedroom at their mother’s home in defiance of a judge’s order to return to the custody of their father, despite state child welfare investigators determining that he had sexually abused the children. A judge concluded the children were victims of “parental alienation,” which continues to influence family courts despite being rejected by mainstream scientific groups, and authorized police to use “reasonable force” to remove them from their mother.

Domestic Violence (GREVIO) published an annual report focusing on child custody, visitation and domestic violence. In its 1st General Report, GREVIO51 commented that three shortcomings existed with regards to the protection afforded to women victims of domestic violence and their children in the context of custody and visitation decisions. These concern the provision of protection and support to child witnesses of domestic violence, insufficient measures to ensure the safety of mothers who are victims of domestic violence and their children in decisions regarding child custody and visitation, and mandatory mediation in civil procedures and divorce proceedings that address child custody matters. These shortcomings continue to persist while a number of additional issues have emerged. According to the report: “It is now clear that the minimisation of domestic violence within family court processes is closely linked to an increasing use of the concept of “parental alienation” to undermine the views of child victims of domestic violence who fear contact with parents who have perpetrated domestic abuse89 despite the obvious risks this would entail for both adult and child victims.”

Disorder (PAD), or Parental Alienation (PA) When Child Maltreatment is of Concern
APSAC stands opposed to the use of PAS, PAD, and PA as a presumptive explanation for child resistance, refusal, and fear of contact with the less preferred parent in contested child custody cases. Science and careful evaluations of the causes of child resistance, refusal, and fear of contact in particular cases should guide investigations by Child Protective Services and evaluations by child custody experts.

By Adiel Kaplan, Kate Snow and Eric Salzman (NBC News)
In the past five years, at least two dozen similar cases — in which a parent killed a child after the other parent raised concerns about abuse during a custody dispute — have made headlines across the country. There’s no official government tally of these deaths and no national data on how courts handle custody cases with abuse allegations. But experts say in every state, judges have significant power in custody cases and their decisions are rarely overturned. The judges overseeing these cases, however, are often untrained in the dynamics of abuse and trauma or how to evaluate whether a child could be in danger.

More on Abusers getting custody: Silberg, J., & Dallam, S. J. (2019). Abusers gaining custody in family courts: A case series of over turned decisions. Journal of Child Custody, 16(2), 140-169.

by Cara Tabachnick (The Washington Post)
The court gave temporary custody of the children’s father so he could take them to Family Bridges to repair their relationship. It was almost a year before they were allowed to see or speak to their mother again. These are among a growing number of children in high-conflict divorce cases being sent — often unwillingly — to nascent and unproven “reunification” programs, which cost tens of thousands of dollars.