On Wednesday 11 December, the Family Justice Council has issued guidance to family court judges in cases where mothers report domestic violence and abusive fathers counter this with allegations of ‘parental alienation’ to force their children to see them. In short, it tells judges that parental alienation is junk science – and that accusation of it, by men against women, must be ignored.
Parental alienation: yet more junk psychiatry
Parental alienation is a pseudo-scientific theory. Women’s Aid noted:
Over the last few years, the terms “parental alienation” and “alienating behaviour” have been used more and more – in the family courts, in children’s social work, on social media, and even in debates about the new domestic abuse bill.
But why is “alienation” such a dangerous term when it comes to domestic abuse?
While there are no robust empirical studies to back up the concept of “parental alienation”, and no reliable data on its prevalence,[i] there is, as Adrienne Barnett discusses in our Safe blog, a growing, and increasingly robust evidence base demonstrating the ways that allegations of alienation are used in the family courts to rebut, obscure and distract from allegations of domestic abuse.
Put simply, when mothers raise concerns about whether contact between a perpetrator of domestic abuse and a child is safe, they are accused of attempting to “alienate” the child from the father. They are also accused of making false allegations of domestic or child abuse. Devastatingly, the results can be that children are forced into unsafe child contact with an abusive parent, or even removed from loving parents and placed with perpetrators of abuse.
However, it now seems that the justice system has caught up with the fact that the notion of parental alienation is misogynistic junk science, promoted by men, for men.
Finally listening to women
The new Family Justice Council guidance states that there is no equivalence between domestic abuse and parental alienation. Domestic abuse is a criminal offence and both a parent/carer and a child may be a victim.
It goes on to say:
For the avoidance of doubt, the Family Justice Council recognises that “parental alienation syndrome” has no evidential basis and is considered a harmful pseudo-science. Concepts of ‘parental alienation syndrome’ and ‘parental alienation’ are increasingly exploited within family litigation.
Campaigners including Support Not Separation say this is a long overdue victory for the movement of mothers who have fought for decades in family court to protect children from violent fathers, including convicted rapists and child abusers.
They argue that this guidance must now be implemented, and say they will be monitoring the courts in our continued defence of children and mothers against violent men.
Until now CAFCASS, social workers, and judges have insisted that children must be forced to have contact with their father and that their ‘reluctance, resistance or refusal’ should be dismissed as ‘parental alienation’.
Mothers who know fathers to be abusive to their children, including sexually, have had to enforce such court orders or be punished by having the children taken from them and given to the abusive father. The lives of children and mothers have been put at risk and some have been murdered or committed suicide as a result.
Parental alienation: consigned to the dustbin of junk psychiatry
A year ago, Women Against Rape and the Support Not Separation Coalition (co-ordinated by Legal Action for Women) who work with hundreds of mothers trying to protect their children from violent men, gave evidence to the Family Justice Council’s consultation. Their recommendations included that there should be:
An end to all reference of parental alienation or alienating behaviours [PA/AB] and ban so-called PA/AB “experts” regulated or not. We said that courts should value a child’s reasons for wanting no contact with fathers accused of violence and desist from forcing children into unwanted contact – that is child abuse.
This guidance comes almost four years after the path-breaking Harm Report which recognised that the family courts are ‘sexist, racist and class biased’ – and ableist, too.
The previous government and the family courts took no action to implement the findings of the Harm Report. Campaigners say the new guidance is a nail in the coffin of the ‘presumption of contact‘ promoted by the fathers’ lobby which denies domestic abuse and has embedded itself in CAFCASS and the family court.
Support Not Separation said:
We now need to know how many children, and women, have been harmed as a result of years of family court rulings backing men’s false claims of ‘parental alienation’. And how many are children of colour who suffered additional discrimination. And how many men, including policemen, have escaped prosecution for their violence by claiming ‘parental alienation’.
We will begin then to understand how much damage has been done to children, families, especially single mother families, and communities by the enforcement of such sexist court orders.
The medical profession – specifically psychiatry – and social services have long and torrid histories of misogyny, abuse, and gaslighting against women. The Family Justice Council’s guidance is the first step towards beginning to redress the balance away from men.
Featured image via the Canary
