One year of mandatory joint custody: The ongoing ordeal of abused women and children

One year on: the mandatory joint custody law has been in effect for a year now — it sparked reactions from the moment Justice Minister Tsiaras tabled it in parliament, and the results are now visible. tvxs.gr's reporting documents tragic cases in which custody is awarded to fathers who have abused the child's mother, and often the child itself — including cases where the child was seized by authorities at night.

Judges untrained in family matters are being asked to decide even which school a child should attend, when the two parents can't agree. Court rulings often set schedules of 10 days with one parent, 20 with the other, regardless of the child's wishes, or require the child to change country of residence each year if one parent lives abroad. One breastfeeding mother was ordered by a court to be separated from her infant for 10 days a month, required to pump milk and hand it over to the father. "Judges often decide according to one parent's interest rather than the children's, while abused mothers are now in absolute despair," says Kiki Petroulaki of the European Network Against Violence, speaking to tvxs.gr.

The warnings from experts and organizations — that mandatory joint custody could never resolve a couple's conflicts in the child's interest — have been borne out. Worse still, so have the warnings that the law strips away protection for abused mothers and children and turns women into hostages of their abusers. The starkest example is the Ioannina case, where a mother who followed the law to the letter lost parental authority, and the child ended up with the father who, according to the child's own testimony, was responsible for abusing him.

"In practice, Greek courts are already accepting the argument of 'parental alienation' and the 'alienating mother' — a concept condemned across the board by the international scientific community," says Petroulaki.

The unscientific and dangerous term "parental alienation" now accepted in court

"Since the Tsiaras law, the term 'parental alienation' is being used more and more in courts, despite strict recommendations against it from GREVIO, the expert body monitoring implementation of the Istanbul Convention. Fathers reported for domestic violence constantly claim the accusations are false," Petroulaki says.

"Civil courts — where child custody and visitation are decided — are required to take into account the existence of domestic violence against the mother and children, since a child's best interest is to live in a family free of violence. Yet what happens is that those accused of abuse try to twist the complaint, claiming the mother is 'alienating' the child and lying, and that the child is lying too. They claim the child is being coerced by the mother into lying, attributing it to 'parental alienation.'"

"I want to remind people that women's organizations and bodies like the European Network Against Violence, which support survivors of domestic violence and their children, fought to have this term removed from the bill, since among other things it violates the Istanbul Convention — and the minister modified it, renaming it 'breakdown of relations.' But fathers still invoke it to seek removal of parental authority from mothers. It was deliberately built into the law to be used as a weapon against mothers." The term "parental alienation" rests on dangerous pseudoscientific claims, as previously detailed on tvxs.gr and analyzed by psychiatrist G. Nikolaidis — its originator was, among other things, an advocate for pedophilia.

Ioannina: custody given to a father reported for taking the child to a sexual abuser

A telling case showing the real-world impact of the Tsiaras law on domestic violence victims' lives is that of Ioannina.

"Police entered at night and took a 6.5-year-old child out of bed to hand over to the father, who according to the child's own testimony was responsible for the child being abused by a third party. It was an unjustifiable ruling by a judge in Ioannina. The mother did everything the law required. And yet she couldn't protect the child. On the contrary, whatever she did ended up working against both the child and herself," says Petroulaki.

The child's mother was herself a victim of abuse by her former partner. She managed to separate and win custody, and still allowed the father to see the child — until the child told her the father was taking him somewhere where a man was sexually abusing him. The mother couldn't identify who it was, since the only detail the child gave was a name, says Petroulaki, whom the mother turned to for help.

"She asked for a ruling restricting the father's contact with the child and was refused. Then the child started refusing to go, and the father became violent toward both the mother and the child. So the mother stopped wanting to let the father see the child. But under the Tsiaras law, she's liable if she doesn't let the father see the child — even though she'd done everything right, even though she'd immediately reported her suspicions and the details the child gave to police. Police told her to keep handing the child over to the father, and that he'd be monitored by officers. The court then used this against her. The judge said: why did you hand him over if you feared the child was being abused? So you're lying. Even though it was the police's decision. Even though the Tsiaras law required it.

In reality, whatever the mother did, she would lose. If she didn't hand the child over, she'd be liable under the joint custody law, branded an alienator. If she did hand him over, she'd be called a liar and an alienator.

The mother also followed the juvenile prosecutor's guidance and consulted private psychologists, who concluded that what the child described had indeed happened. After 9 months with no protection for the child or mother, formal evaluations began... the child was, in her words, "shattered" by the evaluations — his account was challenged, and he was brought face-to-face with his father. The judge, interpreting the evaluations, dismissed the original reports as unreliable because they came from private practitioners, and distorted the conclusions of the next two: they didn't say the claims were false, only that no conclusion could be drawn.

They can't draw a conclusion — and they seize the child from his mother to hand him, by court order, to the man who, it appears, is leading him into abuse. With no protection for the child, no oversight of his safety, no contact with the mother he has lived with his entire life. The mother is trying to overturn the ruling, and we are filing a brief with the Supreme Court asking it to intervene."

Veroia: judges repeatedly award custody to abusive fathers

As tvxs.gr has previously revealed, specific judges in Veroia have repeatedly awarded child custody to abusive husbands. "The court gave custody of our children to my abusive ex-husband. He'll only get the children over my dead body. There is no justice in this country," said M., an anesthesiologist, the first woman to share her testimony on the site. Another woman from the same city came forward next, revealing that the same judges stripped her of her children, granting temporary custody to the partner she had fled after he sexually and verbally abused her. The same thing happened to a third woman, despite her having submitted video evidence to the court of her ex-husband beating her.

"These rulings rest largely on the Tsiaras law, which gives 'willing' judges the license to act against the child's and mother's interests under the alibi of the father's rights. What they keep repeating is that the court doesn't examine the man's behavior toward his wife, only whether he's a good father. But how can a man who is violent toward the child's mother be a good father? And how can so many victims be forced into ongoing contact with their abusers? Because that's what the law does, in violation of Articles 26, 31 and 45 of the Istanbul Convention," says Petroulaki.

A fourth incident also occurred in Veroia: "A court awarded three children to a man convicted of firing gunshots, who also has a pending criminal prosecution for domestic violence against the mother," says Petroulaki. "This shows that in smaller places with few judges, if you draw one with stereotypical or even misogynistic views, that's it — women have no way out."

Trikala: she lost custody and her home

Under the Tsiaras law, no parent can make a decision about a child without the other's approval. As a result, since the law passed, dozens of parents have flooded the courts over matters as basic as which school a child should attend.

In cases without domestic violence, this can still harm the child and produce rulings that complicate rather than ease their life. But what happens when an abused mother leaves to save herself? The answer, as seen in the Veroia cases, is that the Tsiaras law doesn't let her.

"A few months ago, a mother who was a domestic violence victim, who had custody of her two children, wanted to move to a different city. The father wasn't around anyway and wasn't seeking the children. She moved, went to enroll the children in school, and couldn't — because it required the father's consent. The result? She went to court, and they took both children and the house from her!" says Petroulaki.

"Under the new Family Law, the moment you separate, joint custody applies by default, until a mother petitions the court to have something altered. After filing a domestic violence complaint, you're still obligated to contact him and tell him to come see the child. If you don't, you risk being accused of being an alienator, of failing to properly exercise parental responsibility. Imagine a mother running to save her life and her children's mental wellbeing, having to contact her abuser and say, 'I'm here, come see the child!'"

What was it like before? "Mother and children were safe until a court ruling was issued determining custody and contact arrangements," Petroulaki explains.

The cases are endless — not just in the cities mentioned but in Athens, Agrinio, Thessaloniki and elsewhere. "The time that's passed has shown us in practice that this law exposes abused women to serious danger. It's now harder for them to leave an abusive relationship, and if they do, they remain in ongoing hostage-like situations, lose their children, and face continued danger," Petroulaki concludes.

"This era we're living through will certainly be written into history... And history will show whether, as a society, we truly want abuse victims to speak — or whether we don't mean it, and will use the exemplary suffering and punishment of those who dared to speak, to silence all the rest forever."