PRESS RELEASE
PAS doesn't exist: so let's call it Parental Refusal.
D.i.Re: The new definitions do not change the substance.
A picket line will be in Corsia Agonale from 11am to stop this dangerous trend.
D.i.Re – Women in Network against violence raises the alarm: once again there is an attempt to re-propose the Administrative staff Under new guise and with different definitions, but the substance remains unchanged. The Court of Cassation has already clarified: it is a concept devoid of scientific and legal foundation.
The Senate will host, on September 18th, an institutional event to present the Operational Handbook and Integrated Multiprofessional Approach to "Parent Refusal".
Also D.i.Re will be present with a symbolic garrison in Corsia Agonale – near the Senate of the Republic – from 11.00 to 13.00 to ask the institutions to stop any attempt to:
- blaming mothers for their children's choices,
- to ideologically orient the work of the CTUs,
- using “parental rejection” as a tool to influence judicial decisions.
Indeed, international research and that of the Parliamentary Commission on Femicide show how this strategy silences women, discouraging them from reporting the crime, lest their children be separated.
In separations and custody cases marked by domestic violence, the Cartabia Reform gives priority to the protection of mothers and children.A violent man cannot be considered a good father: he creates fear, insecurity, and sends the message to his children that oppression trumps respect. It is precisely this reality that often pushes minors to reject their abusive fathers and mothers to seek protection.” declares Luisanna Porcu, psychologist and national councilor D.i.Re – Women on the Net against violence.
"For too long we have been witnessing a dangerous cultural operation: transforming the violence in simple conflict, putting on the same level those who suffer it and those who act it" declares Cristina Carelli, president of D.i.Re - Women on the Net against violence. "Boys and girls who are victims of direct or witnessed violence are the children of women who survived male violence. They grew up with a constant awareness of what could have happened and therefore live with a deep sense of despair.” continues Carelli. “They have directly experienced their function as an instrument for the father's exercise of power over the mother, they know what the father is capable of and they refuse to stay with him because they are afraid of what might happen.” concludes the president.
D.i.Re – Donne in Rete contro la violenza It therefore denounces the instrumental recourse to the minor's behaviour as alleged parental alienation, or parental rejection: national and international legislation obliges States to prevent any form of institutional violence, including the one that occurs when the complaint of domestic violence turns into an accusation against the woman who suffers it.