A group of mothers, lawyers and psychiatrists from different Latin American countries are leading a fight against the use of the false parental alienation syndrome (PAS) that serves as an argument to give custody of children to parents accused of family violence or sexual abuse. . They call them crazy, complaining, jealous, they accuse them of taking out their frustrations on their children. They are determined to demonstrate the danger of judges using that theory to delegitimize complaints.
They have just had a conquest in Colombia. The Constitutional Court prohibited the other judges from “using the diagnostic instrument” known as SAP, because, he says in his sentence, “it is not currently accredited by science, as it harms the prevailing rights of children and adolescents; “reproduces gender stereotypes and generates events of discrimination and, therefore, violence against women based on gender.”
Indeed, the so-called parental alienation has no scientific validity, nor is it recognized by health or psychiatric authorities in the world, but in the region it has made its way into legislation to favor men who commit gender violence, and it has been used by judges to decide child custody. This has also been warned by the Committee of Experts of the Follow-up Mechanism of the Belém do Pará Convention (Mesecvi) of the OAS and the Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women of the United Nations. In the Court's ruling, the rapporteur magistrate Diana Fajardo returned to these alerts.
The court analyzed the case that occurred after the breakup of a 10-year relationship. With a minor child, the woman reported being a victim of domestic violence, and began a shared custody process. She had a protective measure to prevent attacks from her ex-husband, but a family police station lifted the measure and ordered that her son, then a child, spend time with her father. This, despite the fact that the same police station had identified child abuse on the part of the man. After many years of legal disputes, the man filed a criminal complaint against the woman “for alleged arbitrary exercise of custody,” arguing the alleged SAP.
The term was introduced in the 1980s by the American psychiatrist Richard Gardner, who stated that there was a syndrome that could lead children with conflictive custody problems to falsely accuse a parent of abuse. Gardner, whose theory caused scientific rejection from the beginning, maintained that children who suffered from the syndrome had been taught in a vindictive manner by one of the parents and obsessively denigrated the other for no reason, in other words, that it was possible to “brainwash” them. To a child. The psychiatrist, who committed suicide in 2003, recommended to the courts in which he testified that the child be removed from the home of the allegedly alienating parent and placed in the custody of the person accused of the abuse.
A regional problem
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The use of this instrument has become popular in the region. “We began to show that this pseudo theory was used in cases of incestuous sexual violence, with touching. In this theory it seems that the aggressors found a loot of gold to continue doing it,” says one of the mothers who is part of the Yo si te CREO movement, who prefers not to reveal her name.
“We collected evidence and saw that the aggressors defended themselves in the same way in different countries. We found that, in Spain, Brazil, Mexico it was regulated and they reversed it,” added another mother during the talk 'Unscientific theories that violate the rights of boys, girls and their mothers', held at the end of 2023.
The psychiatrist Isabel Cuadros Ferrer participated in the meeting. She says it bluntly: “You cannot plant perceptual memories,” she explained, and she gave an extreme example based on her experience dealing with cases of sexual violence. “For example, when a child tells me that semen tastes bad, it is impossible for a mother to implant a memory like that. It is also not possible to implant the post-traumatic stress that the victims have, when they arrive with a forensic investigator you can see if there is indoctrination, but it is not possible to plant perceptual memories.
One of the strongest warnings that Mesecvi makes is that SAP has been used even in cases of sexual violence. “It becomes a way for impunity and for the crime not to be proven. The seriousness lies in handing over possession to abusive people,” says Marcela Huaita Alegre, lawyer and president of the Mechanism.
They point out that there are economic reasons behind the use of this false theory. “It is a business for experts, lawyers and people who defend abusers,” adds Huaita, who clarifies that they are not opposed to shared custody. “It is that this figure of the supposed syndrome is being used in cases where there is an exercise of violence against women, they have reported it and, in response to this exercise of violence, then the man argues parental alienation on the part of the mothers and the request for custody,” he explained.
The regional panorama shows attempts to include SAP under other names in different legislations. This is revealed in a United Nations report published in April 2023. “The contributions from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Uruguay show how men use the parental alienation syndrome to nullify complaints.” of physical, sexual or emotional abuse by legal means. A contribution from France describes cases in which custody was withdrawn from the mother, who had reported sexual abuse corroborated by psychological examinations, and handed over to the father (the aggressor) after he invoked parental alienation,” the rapporteur points out in The report.
In Chile, an attempt was made to include it in the Family Commission of the Chamber of Deputies. The Minister of Women had to reject the idea of “legislating to include parental alienation syndrome as domestic violence” and thus avoid discussing “a bill without a scientific or legal basis.” In Uruguay, a Law on “co-responsibility in parenting” was approved which, according to complaints from women's organizations, is based on the parental alienation syndrome, but was presented with a benevolent name. In Brazil, for its part, it was included in a Law in 2010 and was later modified, but feminists are asking to repeal it completely; contrary to Peru, where the SAP was endorsed in an article of a Children's Law.
The journalist and childhood researcher Alexandra Cardona says that in the case of Colombia there is a serious problem because many psychologists assume the existence of SAP. “The experts have made the family courts fall into error because they sell them that theory, which has no basis, and they have caused mothers to lose their children.” The mother of the I do believe you movement, she has lived it. “Here sexual violence is reported and the first thing that is ruled out is whether (the minor) is alienated by the mother and not that he has not been a victim of violence, the world is upside down.”
The Colombian forensic and clinical psychologist María Paula Chicurel affirms that using this supposed syndrome ignores the children's voices. “We cannot silence it through pseudotheories and putting adults and patriarchy first,” he says, adding that there are no effective sanctions for psychologists who have been denounced for the use of the SAP; they are not convicted in ethic
s courts and that is another of the great voids.
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