Domestic violence is a nightmare. Then there is the separation, and the nightmare continues. And, finally, the DPJ intervenes: and there it is no longer a nightmare… it is hell.
For several weeks now, women’s groups have been sounding the alarm: the youth protection reform is not doing enough for women and children who are victims of domestic violence. The bill perpetuates a system where, by ideology or by mistake, children continue to be placed with an abusive father.
Including exposure to domestic violence as grounds for compromise, a measure to which Minister Carmant has shown himself open, is a drop in the bucket on a burning house. Admittedly, this will allow the DYP to intervene in situations of domestic violence, but if this intervention boils down to punishing the mother, calling her a liar, or giving the violent father more custody time, we will not be no more advanced. The crux of the problem is not only that the DYP hesitates to intervene in situations of domestic violence: it is that its interventions are often disastrous.
In such a context, how can children be protected? I challenge parliamentarians with concrete leads so that we are offered, after detailed study, a bill that will put an end to the nightmare without recalling hell.
Keep children away from danger
How can we have, in 2022, a law that allows children to be entrusted to their violent father? We can’t. A presumption must be legislated so that, in a situation of domestic or spousal violence, the aggressor cannot obtain custody. Legislate also to favor the safety of the mother and the child beyond the maintenance of the father-child bond.
Often, hell breaks loose to punish the mother for reporting the violence, asking for sole custody, or trying to protect the child, especially if her report is not believed. Let’s enshrine clear rules in the law that prohibit the DYP and the courts from holding such denunciation or protective behavior against the mother.
The irony is that the father who recognizes an abusive situation is sometimes portrayed as the more neutral, nuanced, reasonable parent. We arrive at absurd situations where both parents recognize that the mother has better parenting skills, but where the child is still entrusted to the father!
Listen to mothers and children
When children say they are in danger, do we listen to them? Often, the DYP and the courts prefer to say that the child is “alienated”. Result: the child is forced to live with the father. Can you imagine a more traumatic situation?
It must be made clear in the law that the child must be listened to, that his choice, from a certain age, is decisive, and that he cannot be forced, in the name of the father-child bond, to live with a parent of whom he is terrified.
And since Bill 15 provides for several situations where decisions can be made with the consent of only one parent, why not add situations of domestic violence? The DYP will thus be able, despite the objections of a violent parent who seeks to maintain control, to quickly take protective measures.
Listen to real experts
We face a serious cultural problem. This is why it is necessary to require that DYP workers take mandatory annual training on domestic violence. As for the “experts” who testify in youth protection cases, we also demand that they have expertise in domestic violence. I don’t want to see any more reports where the “expert” claims that domestic violence does not affect the child!
Let us also prohibit reports based on pseudo-science. Jurisprudence abounds in absurdities, as in the case of an expert who testified that, if the child did not learn to love his father, she would have “great difficulties in establishing any affective relationship, and in particular in her future couple or in her possible role as a future mother”. With such expertise – without the slightest scientific basis – one might as well play the fate of the child on the tarot.
Review records
How to protect children who were endangered before the reform? One solution would be to review all the files from the last few years where the child was deemed “alienated” or placed with a parent targeted by a denunciation of violence.
We could draw inspiration here from the “Philadelphia model” in terms of sexual assault. This model sees community groups reviewing sexual assault complaints that police have deemed “unfounded”. This reduces the number of complaints left unaddressed. Why not take advantage of the many expert groups on domestic violence to review the files of the DYP?
Not an exception
It may be tempting to include measures in the bill that will only apply in situations of spousal violence. However, such measures do not help when the violence is not denounced or when a denunciation, although truthful, is perceived as unfounded. In many cases, the DYP intervenes in a problematic way because instead of detecting a situation of conjugal violence, it sees in it “parental alienation” or a “conflict of loyalty”.
Measures must therefore be put in place that will apply to all files. Thus, even if the DYP fails to detect a situation of violence, the child will not be put in danger.
I don’t see any other way to save all the children from hell.