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Interview

PAVE 015: Work With Perpetrators, differences in Europe regarding Perpetrator programs, Changing the Judical system, creating an European Framework and preventing violence in close relationships with Alessandra Pauncz

Alessandra Pauncz has been working in the field of domestic violence for 20 years and has covered many areas of expertise. She has advocated and worked for victims of domestic violence as a shelter worker, psychologist, researcher, manager, trainer, and in fund and conscious raising at a local , provincial, regional, national and European level ( She founded and ran the first Centre in Italy working with perpetrators (namely the – Centre for abusive men), and set up the National Italian Network of work with perpetatrors (Relive). Additionally, Alessandra has published articles and books like Shifting power: How to recognize and overcome psychologically abusive relationships

She is the executive director of Work With Perpetrators. The European Network for the Work With Perpetrators of domestic violence (WWP EN) is a membership association of organisations directly or indirectly working with people who perpetrate violence in close relationships. The main focus of WWP EN is violence perpetrated by men against women and children.

The overall mission of WWP EN is to prevent violence in close relationships as a gender-based phenomenon and to foster gender equality. More specifically, the mission of WWP EN is to improve the safety of women and their children and others at risk from violence in close relationships, through the promotion of effective work with those who perpetrate this violence, mainly men.

Today we will discuss  why WWP focusses on perpetrators of violence, why perpetrators don’t see themselves as a perpetrator, the differences within Europe regarding to perpetrator programs, why working with perpetrators makes you less helpless and how we can change the judical system.

TOPICS DISCUSSED AND ORGANISATIONS/EVENTS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

2.25: The beginning of WWP

5:55  Why WWP focuses on perpetrators

7:50 Are men really held accountable via the media

9:00 Violence in Italy

11:00 Why the media isn’t helpful and why perpetrators don’t see themselves as a perpetrator

12:28 Is there a big difference between perpetrator programs accross Europe?

15:15 About the coming annual workshop

18:00 The effect of pornography on boys

19:55 Behind the scenes of the European framework perpetrator programs

21:00 Publicly available research

21:45 The different kind of perpetrators referrals

25:00 What a perpatrator feels

28:10 Events coming up for WWP

29:00 What do you want to accomplished?

31:00 Pressing issues that WWP faces

34:00 What kind of change do we need?

35:40 Is a perpatror sorry for himself or for the victim? What does he regret exactly?

36:00 How Alessandra was being haunted by the ghosts who haunted all the women Alessandra has worked with and how that influenced how she looked at the world. And how her son helped her to get rid of those ghosts.

42:00 Why working with perpetrators makes you less helpless.

44:25 Recommending book allen Jenkins

TWEETABLES and QUOTES:

 

MORE ABOUT ALESSANDRA PAUNCZ AND WORK WITH PERPETRATORS:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WwpEuropeanNetwork/

The website of WWP was: https://www.work-with-perpetrators.eu/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/european_network_wwp

BOOKS MENTIONED:

https://www.amazon.com/Shifting-power-recognize-psychologically-relationships/dp/1500227951

https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Ethical-Parallel-Political-Journey/dp/1905541406/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1534776252&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=allan+jenkins+becoming+ethical

MORE ABOUT PAVE

Website: https://www.aliannelooijenga.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PAVE-professionals-against-violence-podcast-1253878638026611/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aliannelooijenga/

SPONSORS

If you want to be a guest on the PAVE podcast, a volunteer working for PAVE, are you interested in becoming a PAVE sponsor, do you want to help us in an other way, email me to see how we can work together to end the violence against women and children.

email: alianne@aliannelooijenga.com

Abuse, Activism, Interview, PAVE Podcast

PAVE 009: Peace, the Red Elephant Foundation, Gender Equality, and how to inspire people into action with Kirthi Jayakumar

Kirthi Jayakumar is an activist, artist and writer from Chennai, India. She founded and runs the Red Elephant Foundation, a civilian peacebuilding initiative that works for gender equality through storytelling, advocacy and digital interventions. She is a member of the Youth Working Group for Gender Equality. Kirthi is the recipient of the US Presidential Services Medal (2012) for her services as a volunteer to Delta Women NGO, and the two-time recipient of the UN Online Volunteer of the Year Award (2012, 2013).

Kirthi is also the recipient of the Global Peace Prize 2016, from WeSchool, and the Rising Star of India Award, 2016, from We The City India. Her second book, The Dove’s Lament, made it to the final shortlist for the Muse India Young Writers’ Literary Award. Kirthi was recently invited to the United State of Women Summit at the White House in Washington DC, as a nominated changemaker. She is also a Zen Doodler, and her works have been commissioned by corporate establishments, non-profits and art collectors world over.

To listen to the PAVE podcast Episode 009 with Kirthi Jayakumar please click here: https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/pave-professionals-against-violence-podcast/id1203285774?mt=2#episodeGuid=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.professionalsagainstviolence.com%2F%3Fp%3D932

About your host: 

Alianne Looijenga is an international speaker motivating organizations to effectively help survivors of partner abuse, child abuse and sexual abuse. She is also the founder of aliannelooijenga.com and the Professionals against violence (PAVE) podcast.   Alianne is a survivor of sexual abuse (including rape); partner abuse; and is the mother of twins who were abused by their biological father after a judge granted him visitation rights when the children were three years old.

Alianne is dedicated to the empowerment of survivors of abuse and to support organisations working to end the violence against women and children.

TOPICS DISCUSSED AND ORGANISATIONS/EVENTS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

  • Kirthi suffered different kinds of abuse: sexual abuse, bullying, racism and ethnic violence. It made her empathy driven but it had a major impact. She chose silence over articulation of the things that happened to her with manifestations on her health as a result.
  • How Kirthi transformed because of the New Delhi rape and the wisdom of her mother:
  • You have two options: you can feel terrible about this, you can feel depressed, you can mourn about it, you can do whatever you want, fine. Or you can do this for some time and pick up your life. Whatever it is that you do, remember it is your choice and whatever you choose, I am with you.
  • Kirthi thought deeply for six months about all that happened, learned about alternative healing, read and thought a lot and after six months she gave her mom (on her birthday) the gift of Kirthi’s empowerment and founded the Red Elephant Foundation.
  • United state of Women (9:00 minutes)
  • The secret about how Kirthi can accomplish so much per day
  • Female infanticide (12:00 minutes)
  • Why Kirthi chose fiction to tell her stories to inspire people into action (13:00 minutes)
  • The writing proces of the writer of Dimashq (15.00 minutes)

– Syrian conflict

–  A different approach in thinking about war and conflict

Kirthi’s biggest dream (19:00 minutes)

Why peace is so important for Kirthi (21:00 minutes)

Alianne’s story regarding to health and trauma (35 minutes)

To listen to the PAVE podcast Episode 009 with Kirthi Jayakumar please click here: https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/pave-professionals-against-violence-podcast/id1203285774?mt=2#episodeGuid=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.professionalsagainstviolence.com%2F%3Fp%3D932

MORE ABOUT KIRTHI AND THE RED ELEPHANT FOUNDATION

MORE ABOUT KIRTHI 

http://www.redelephantfoundation.org/

https://www.instagram.com/femcyclopaedia/

https://www.instagram.com/kirthipotamus/

The Doodle Kirthi created for me (I am still humbled to be featured next to these women): https://www.instagram.com/p/BSzC5e8A-R9/?taken-by=femcyclopaedia

Kirthi’s books, including the Dove’s lament and the doodler of Dimashq: https://www.amazon.com/Kirthi-Jayakumar/e/B076V6GJBY

MORE ABOUT PAVE

https://www.instagram.com/aliannelooijenga

SPONSORS

If you want to be a guest on the PAVE podcast, a volunteer working for PAVE, if you are interested in becoming a PAVE sponsor, or want to help us in an other way, email me to see how we can work together to end the violence against women and children.

email: alianne@aliannelooijenga.com

To listen to the PAVE podcast Episode 009 with Kirthi Jayakumar please click here: https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/pave-professionals-against-violence-podcast/id1203285774?mt=2#episodeGuid=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.professionalsagainstviolence.com%2F%3Fp%3D932

Abuse, Activism, Feminism, Gender Equality, Health, Interview, Mindset, Patriarchy, PAVE Podcast, Personal, UN women

PAVE 008: Polygamous Cult, Child brides, and raising awareness for early and forced marriage with Kerry GibsonPolygamous Cult, Child brides, and raising awareness for early and forced marriage with Kerry Gibson

Kerry Gibson is planet 5050 champion to UN women and the president of EcoCentury Technologies. With support from UNWomen, politcal leaders and activists she raised awareness for early and forced marriage  globally and in North America via the event: Not yet for the dress.

To listen to the podcast you can click the player button above or if you want to listen to the Itunes store please visit: https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/pave-professionals-against-violence-podcast/id1203285774?mt=2&i=1000400774077

About your host: 

Alianne Looijenga is an international speaker motivating organizations to effectively help survivors of partner abuse, child abuse and sexual abuse. She is also the founder of aliannelooijenga.com and the Professionals against violence (PAVE) podcast.   Alianne is a survivor of sexual abuse (including rape); partner abuse; and is the mother of twins who were abused by their biological father after a judge granted him visitation rights when the children were three years old.

Alianne is dedicated to the empowerment of survivors of abuse and to support organisations working to end the violence against women and children.

TOPICS DISCUSSED AND ORGANISATIONS/EVENTS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

1:20 how Kerry became involved with UN women

3:00 getting the reward title of 50/50 champion

5:29 childbrides an north America issue

6:40 polygamous cult bountifall

7:50 rasing awareness early forced marriage via the event not yet for the dress

20:28 How a curious message Kerry received resulted in Wellington Chibebe freeing a woman in a labour camp

28:00 how the mindset of her granddad inspires her to this day, the cause of her believe in gender equality

39:00 The impact of Dolly Parton’s quote: The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.

MORE ABOUT KERRY GIBSON and NOT YET FOR THE DRESS

Kerry Gibson

https://twitter.com/kerryandlace y

www.ecocentury.ca

 

Not Yet for the Dress 

https://www.facebook.com/events/1866892113529209/?ti=cl

 

MORE ABOUT PAVE

https://www.instagram.com/aliannelooijenga

 

SPONSORS

If you want to be a guest on the PAVE podcast, a volunteer working for PAVE, if you are interested in becoming a PAVE sponsor, or want to with us in an other way, email me to see how we can work together to end the violence against women and children.

email: alianne@aliannelooijenga.com

 

Feminism, Gender Equality, Interview, PAVE Podcast

PAVE 004: UNwomen, CSW and International Womens Day with Ravi Karkara

Regarding Ravi Karkara’s investigation:

Update 09/08/2018

A while ago I was warned by Mandy Sanghera (my mentor and first guest on the PAVE podcast) that Ravi Karkara was under investigation for sexual misconduct.

Ravi was also one of the first guests of the PAVE podcast and senior advisor for UN women. Although I knew about this dreadful news for a while I am still shocked and at first didn’t know what to do about this particular episode with Ravi. Should I delete it, should I take it down, I really had no idea. And to be honest I am still not quite sure what to do with it right now.  

Until I am sure about what to do I decided to keep this episode. Not only because the investigation is still going on but also because it shows that (sexual) abuse, manipulation and misuse of power can happen everywhere. That what someone is pretending to be can very differ from the reality. It can happen in every organisation, in every position, regardless of gender and even an institution like the UN is not immune to it.

What is important now is what the UN will do with their investigation and the other accusations in former and present complaints and very importantly: how the UN will reform it’s culture. 

My wish is that the UN will take a stand and will serve as a rolemodel for institutions like courts, police stations and so on. Because victims have been silenced for to long.

#silencedtoolong. #metoo

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/aug/08/senior-un-gender-and-youth-adviser-accused-sexual-misconduct-ravi-karkara-investigation-eight-men-un-women

Ravi Karkara is a Senior Advisor on Strategic Partnerships and Advocacy to the Assistant Secretary General to the UN and Deputy Executive Director at UN Women. With over two decades of experience, Ravi is an expert in various international development-related fields, driving innovation, building strategic partnerships, and promoting advocacy and programming in the areas of human rights, gender equality, accountability and social justice. He is also the Acting Head of Private Sector for UN Women.
  Ravi has been instrumental in supporting UN Women’s work on strategy development – this includes Strategy on Youth and Gender Equality, Working with Boys and Men in Gender Equality.
He has been awarded the Global Officials Award for his work on youth and gender equality and the Inter-Faith Award on promoting peace and harmony. He was also appointed as Junior Chamber International Ambassador.  Previously, he has also worked with the UN Millennium Campaign, UN-HABITAT, UNICEF and Save the Children and has written more than 80 publications/articles in his career spanning over two decades.

Topics discussed and organisations/events mentioned in this episode:

  • CSW – Commission status of women
  • International Women’s day
  • Life Cycle perspective to empower young women
  • Balancing private life
  • Working in gender equality is to transform both femininity and masculinity
  • Being a male feminist
  • Transforming patriarchy

More about Ravi Karkara

More about PAVE

Twitter.com/pave_podcast

Sponsors

If you want to be a guest on the PAVE podcast, a volunteer working for PAVE, if you are interested in becoming a PAVE sponsor, or want to collaborate with us in an other way, email me to see how we can work together to end the violence against women and children.

email: alianne@aliannelooijenga.com

Activism, Feminism, Gender Equality, Interview, Patriarchy, PAVE Podcast, UN women, Women's rights

PAVE 003: Jessica Eaton; researcher victim blaming, founder first UK male mental health centre

Jessica Eaton is an engaging, passionate speaker, lecturer, researcher and writer in the fields of sexual violence and mental health. With a career history in the management of victim and witness services in the criminal justice system, training and managing rape counseling services, setting up the first male mental health centre in the UK and training police, social workers, health staff, councilors, psychologists and local authority staff in child sexual abuse and safeguarding.

For listeners with an Apple product with the “podcast” app please visit: https://itunes.apple.com/nl/podcast/pave-professionals-against/id1203285774?l=en

Jessica Eaton

Topics discussed and organisations/events mentioned in this episode:

  • Who inspired Jessica to found the first UK male mental health centre.
  • Why she focuses on victim blaming.
  • Her research on victim blaming about the public view who is the blame for sexual violence.
  • Jessica’s new book
  • How she uses social media to have conversations, discussions and debates with people with different views and backgrounds like a pedophile about how he controls his thoughts and feelings about abusing children.

More about Jessica Eaton

More about PAVE

Twitter.com/pave_podcast

Sponsors

If you want to be a guest on the PAVE podcast, a volunteer working for PAVE, if you are interested in becoming a PAVE sponsor, or want to collaborate with us in an other way, email me to see how we can work together to end the violence against women and children.

email: alianne@aliannelooijenga.com

Abuse, Activism, Interview, PAVE Podcast

PAVE 002: Shruti Kapoor; educating, equip and empowering women and girls against all forms of violence

Shruti Kapoor is a speaker for UN women and the founder of Sayfty. Sayty is an organisation that educates, equips and empowers women and girls against all forms of violence by training young women and girls in self-defence.

For listeners without an Apple product with the “podcast” app, please visit: https://soundcloud.com/user-476654029/pave-podcast-shruti-kapoor-episode-02 to listen to the episode.

Topics discussed and organisations/events mentioned in this episode:

  • Why Shruti Kapoor founded Sayfty and how she became involved with UN women
  • New Delhi gang rape
  • UN youth network for gender equality
  • Commission on the Status of Women youth (see link below)
  • Youth agency UN women
  • How do you change age old beliefs and stereotypes
  • A moment that changed how Shruti looks at things
  • Breaking a brick with bare hands by changing your mental attitude
  • Restricting ourselves by our limiting beliefs
  • People extraordinaire, where inspiring women are interviewed
  • The quote that helps Shruti to keep going

More about Sayfty

More about Shruti

https://twitter.com/kapoors_s

Youth CSW61 Online Consultation link (open for youth aged 18 – 35yrs): https://www.empowerwomen.org/en/community/discussions/2017/02/have-your-say-csw61-youth

More about PAVE

www.aliannelooijenga.com/about/pave

Twitter.com/pave_podcast

Sponsors

If you want to be a guest on the PAVE podcast, a volunteer working for PAVE, if you are interested in becoming a PAVE sponsor, or want to collaborate with us in an other way, email me to see how we can work together to end the violence against women and children.

email: alianne@aliannelooijenga.com

 

Activism, Interview, PAVE Podcast, Personal, Speaking, UN women

PAVE 001: Mandy Sanghera; building bridges and smashing ceilings

podcast

Mandy Sanghera is an international human rights activists who has spent the last 27 years supporting victims and survivors of Honour Based Violence and cultural Abuse, Forced Marriage , Faith Based Abuse etc. Mandy is an international motivational speaker who has spent years supporting and empowering others find their purpose and rebuild their lives after abuse .

To listen to the episode for Apple users: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/id1203285774

Mentioned in this podcast:

CSW for youth

http://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2016/3/youth-forum-at-csw60

King’s college

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/idi/Events/IDI-News–Events.aspx

Mandy holds a weekly twitter chat called

Girl summit 2014

https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/girl-summit-2014

Kalbir Bains, author of “not our daughter” https://twitter.com/kalbirbains

 

Hello Mandy, welcome at the PAVE podcast. There is so much we can say about you; you are a Tedx speaker, an international human rights activist who has spent the last 27 years supporting victims and survivors of honour based violence and cultural abuse, forced marriage. Mandy what can you tell us more about yourself?

Mandy: Okay I am Mandy Sanghera, I live in the UK but actually I travel all around the world and talking about honour based violence, ritual abusive practices. So a lot of the work that I do is nothing to do with religion it’s about cultural practices. So we talk about FGM, we talk about forced marriages; we talk about children being branded witches or young girls experiencing breast ironing. So forms of violence against women and I have been doing this for 27 years.

Alianne: And you are involved with UN?

Mandy: With what I am involved with the UN is actually a part of the UN women for youth. So what I am doing now, because something that I am very passionate about is actually inspiring and motivating the next generation. Because somebody like myself who has now smashed the glass ceiling is so important that actually I inspire and actually empower and help the next generation. It’s important that a woman of colour who has campaigned on disability and women’s rights and talked about issues that my community would not talk about 27 or 25 years ago. So it’s important now that I am empowering the next generation to take a stand so that’s why I am involved. I am flying out to New York again in March and I will be talking at CSW for youth, I will be talking about ending violence against women again.

Alianne: Is this something going on right now that you are working on?

Read More »

Activism, Interview, PAVE Podcast, Speaking

Infringing the rules despite the consequences

infringing

(This blog was originally written by me for LifeSurfer in 2015/2016)

My story

In every interview done on this planet (for example, in every interview I have done so far) are some mistakes (or some facts are removed), or there is some shuffling with the timeline to make the story flow better.

Usually that’s not a problem, but in a situation where our family is still (or can still be) under a magnifying glass, I have to represent my side correctly ever since I started doing interviews, to prevent misunderstandings.In order to tell my whole story once and shine a proper light on what actually happened in our life, I have written this blog.

First of all, I would like to clarify something. In this article I am very critical towards the Dutch youth care, the Council, family law and the legal system. Because I have talked to many youth care workers and aspiring youth care workers for LifeSurfer, I know that there are loads of good staff members who work in a ‘rotten’ system. But the unmotivated, uninterested, uninformed staff and the devastating impact they have on the lives of the families who have to deal with them, with all its consequences, while the staff member in question continues to another ‘case’, are put in the spotlight in this article, because they are the staff members that I unfortunately had to deal with the most.

fashionista-5

Entering an abusive relationship

I was 14, he was 21, when my ex and I started a relationship. In the very beginning of our relationship he was very nice to me on the one hand, giving me compliments and telling me he couldn’t live without me. On the other hand, he took my virginity by raping me and manipulated me from the beginning. For a while he kept up appearances with nice behaviour and presents, but underneath was the violent behaviour that I considered as incidents at the time. From the beginning I became more and more isolated because he was jealous and suspicious. However, I also considered this as some kind of compliment.  I didn’t realise that my world was becoming very small.

My pregnancy didn’t just feel like a miracle; it was a medical miracle. Since my thyroid functioned very badly, my internist told me I couldn’t get pregnant. When I was 33 weeks pregnant, my ex abused me during a tantrum, squeezed my throat, shouted, pulled me by the hair, pushed my face straight against the wall and ultimately threw me flat out on the ground, which caused the children to be born way too early.

Fleeing and fearing for our life

I could only leave my ex once the children were one year old. Agencies didn’t help me, or I didn’t get referrals. Without an alimony I didn’t get a house and without a house I didn’t get an alimony, so that was a big puzzle at first, because I lived alone in his house with the children, without an income or financial support. I can still see myself with two prematurely born children, sitting at the dole office and the housing office. When I got a house, I fled with the children. People came to help us move and we put my children’s and my stuff in the cars in one go and left.
One day he was suddenly standing in the middle of the living room, when he had “accidentally” taken my keys, which I discovered when he was suddenly standing in front of me. Afterwards, he would sometimes come in. I once found him under the shower. While I was looking at him with astonishment, he was masturbating. Despite all this, I still gave him the kids a few times when he wanted it, because I still wanted to try to stimulate a parent-child relationship.

Consequently, he would arrive at my mother’s house within half an hour because he said he didn’t know what to do with the kids. When my ex noticed that he couldn’t force me or push me to have sex with him anymore, it happened less and less that he would arrive unannounced at my house to demand sex or the children from me.

At the point when he had once again put the children, who were then almost three years old, under an ice-cold shower as a punishment, I told him I wouldn’t give them to him anymore. He would not understand that a shower with ice-cold water is pure abuse and that, apart from the pain the cold shower causes, such young children don’t understand why they are being punished that way. For years, they were terrified of the shower as a consequence.

After I told him he wouldn’t get the children anymore, he threatened that he would “take the children away from me” (literally his words) through Youth Care and started a lawsuit to request shared parental authority and visitation rights. After all, he wanted to get “his money’s worth” because in the meantime he had to pay child alimentation to Social Affairs. I had previously explained the situation to Social Affairs and begged them to never contact him or my old address. Here I found out that professionals often care more about rules and protocol, and don’t really understand how serious a situation is and what the result of their actions can be.

Visitation rights are easily granted. A woman from the Council visited my ex twice for an hour to see if he could control himself. Even though I had asked her not to leave me and the children alone with him, she did when I came to get the kids and walked to the car. Outside the car, my ex severely threatened me, but she consequently wrote in the final report that dad had had a friendly chat with me next to the car. She couldn’t hear what he said, because she didn’t accompany us to the car and stayed inside. Based on her behaviour during the Council’s “investigation” and her later report, she thought my fear was pure nonsense.

For such staff the easiest reasoning is the most pleasant one, so a situation in which there is domestic violence and child abuse is quickly discarded as a divorce battle in which two parties are equally guilty of every conflict or difference in insight that occurs. They don’t try to find out the truth and have no interest in it, because that makes the determination of visitation rights much more complex. A researcher chooses the explanation that suits her best and that she can emotionally and psychologically cope with, so she sees what she wants to see, hears what she wants to hear, and is literally and figuratively deaf and blind for what happens in front of her eyes in terms of intimidation and manipulative behaviour of an abuser.

I think the helplessness is the worst. You know your children are in danger.

You know they are not safe with your ex because of his tantrums and what he considers normal in terms of his way of “upbringing and punishing”, but those who are supposed to protect your children do the very opposite.

Judges and CPS

You expect that people of the Council and Youth Care have insight in recognising child abuse, but the moment you find out that they are working towards a conclusion, when they look at you with glassy eyes when you know more about different types of violence and different types of abusers than they do, that a reply is considered unwillingness in the context of a divorce battle… Oh, it caused so much pain and trauma at the time.

I would love to open their eyes, but experience teaches that many staff members of the Council and Youth Care are blind and deaf, (and literally copy each other’s reports, even when a year or more has passed and the situation has changed), so there you are. With empty hands, you are being accused of everything that isn’t true. The father can tell lies about you, and nobody, not even a judge, questions that.

Nobody wonders what father means with certain statements, such as that he is in favour of a strict and severe upbringing, what that implies to him, how that looks according to him. Nobody questions the father’s lack of interest in the children, nobody asks anything about that, while you have told them that he considers abuse a normal type of punishment. Thank God I knew that I wasn’t on my own and had people around me who helped me stay hopeful, because otherwise I would have gone insane from the helplessness, fear and loneliness this brings with it.

At one point the visitation rights were determined for 1 x a weekend every two weeks and half of all school holidays. At that point the children were already almost four. He cancelled the first two times, because the first time he wanted to go on a holiday and the second time something else was more important, even though he swore to the judge during the trial that he missed the children terribly. That ‘missing’ is something he still claims now, even though he has rarely shown any commitment in the past 9.5 years, and has never asked me or others for information about how they’re doing.

The blind eye of the judges and CPS

But in front of the judge or the agencies he pretended to be the victim, the nice, well-meaning father whose vengeful ex wouldn’t let him see his children whom he loves so much. His behaviour shows the contrary of what he claimed, but no judge wants to open their eyes or see it. It’s easier and more comfortable to go along with his story about being the victim. In that respect, judges don’t differ from staff members of the Youth Care and the Council.

Unfortunately, my experience and that of many other people is that (family) judges don’t make their own judgement in any case, but blindly follow the “professionals’” advice. That comes down to laziness and idleness of the legal system, which is shocking and almost unbelievable if it hasn’t happened to you that a judge says, even before the court session has started, that they will follow the Council’s advice either way.

If a criminalcourt tells you before a trial has even started that a verdict has been made he or she will be fired and rightly so. But in familycourt within the Netherlands this is allowed and even normal behaviour.

After their first curiosity, the children quickly became increasingly upset when they had to go to him. I have loads of voice tapes in which you hear me trying to convince the children to look at the visit positively. Apart from that, I had received 15.000 euros in penalties in the meantime, when I didn’t want to give him the children for the whole weekend. I didn’t, because after the first two times that they had been with him on Saturday and Sunday, they wouldn’t calm down anymore.

Three to four days before a visitation day, the children were upset, and three to four days after. When they had been with him for two consecutive days, that became two weeks. That made me refuse to let them stay with him for a whole weekend and made me change the visitation back to one Sunday every two weeks, so there was one week of relative peace in between.

The result was, thanks to the legal system, the refusal of all agencies (and even the judge) to believe me and recognise that the children couldn’t mentally and psychologically handle more than one day every two weeks (and even that with a lot of trouble and behavioural problems), that he can demand 15,000 euros at any point. This has been hanging over our heads like the sword of Damocles for five years now. Considering his vengefulness and power play, it will remain there until he can cash in.

When he abused my children

During the visitations, my ex cut the children’s nails until they bled. He cut in the pink part, which they call ‘the life’ in the Netherlands. This is strange behaviour, which he also applied to me during our relationship. Even then he had some kind of tic with how long nails are allowed to be, which in his opinion, is very very short.
He used to sit on top of me so I couldn’t get away and, despite my begging, he then used to cut my toenails deep into the life, which caused me to walk around with painful feet for days. In other words, I have an idea of how my children felt and what kind of fear this inflicted on them.

Before going to him, they begged me to cut their nails, and according to them, it was never short enough.

When the children even stood puking in the corridor, because they had been forced to eat all kinds of food they aren’t allowed because of their early birth and reflux, because those irritate the stomach; when the children told me he mentally abused them by, for example, telling them they smelt bad so that out of fear for smelling they rubbed their whole bodies with deodorant; when they told me that Sem was punished very often and always had to sit on the stairs; that he was told not to cry when he was crying because he didn’t know what he had done wrong (he had replied honestly to the question if he thought his dad was nice – the answer was no, so he was punished), because crying isn’t “cool” (he was a four-year-old who didn’t even know the word “cool”); that he had gone for a ride with Tycho in the front seat, even though they had to be in a child car seat for their safety; and that Sem would maybe be allowed to go next time because Tycho had been so cool; etc.; etc.; this made our family go through hell, and nobody wanted to listen to us, nobody wanted to believe me and the children, or take us seriously.

But the final straw was when both children told me how their father had beaten Sem on his whole body, and Sem showed me how he had beaten him on both ears simultaneously, which caused him to be permanently hearing impaired in one ear. It was abuse my ex had also applied to me. It is probably superfluous to say that such abuse is extremely painful and makes your ears whiz for hours. It was and is indeed a method which, as he had mentioned in the police interview, doesn’t leave bruises (“if I had beaten the child like she says, he would have had bruises,” he claimed). He is smart enough to abuse without leaving bruises and broken bones.

Dogmatics

Of course I am angry at my ex for what he has done to the kids. However, I am even angrier at the agencies and all the so-called professionals who have been poorly trained and are so stuck in the dogmatics of youth care and the Council that they have become blind and deaf to a difficult and complex reality. You ring the alarm bell, with a cry for help, but nobody listens, helps or even recognises your worries. That may be the largest trauma. Every child deserves to be safe. Nobody believed me; whatever I tried to draw attention to in the interest of my children was dismissed as insignificant and unimportant.

After all, in the eyes of some of the staff of youth care and the Council, I was and still am the evil mother who only blames her ex so she could take revenge by taking his children away from him. Due to the limitations and the inability of these “professionals” to see the truth and not reason, based on the assumptions that suit them best, their blindness and the tunnel vision they suffer from, that won’t change. That hurt so much and made me feel so helpless.

You can’t defend yourself against what people think of you and what they determine are your intentions and your motivation. Again and again (to this very day), I have had to fight against enormous prejudice. It is a fight against windmills: completely useless, but you can’t escape it.

As long as children and mothers are the victim of this and have to go through the same things, I will continue to help women stand in their power. I won’t let them be belittled and insulted by a completely unjust and indifferent system that doesn’t respect their rights.

Feelings of guilt

For a long time, I have walked around with anger towards myself caused by feelings of guilt. It took time before I could forgive myself and understand that I had done the best with the knowledge I had at the time. I blamed myself for having let my children be acknowledged by him before their birth (it is a juridical procedure where he claims to be their father), even though he didn’t want it at all; for dreaming of a miraculous change in him once the children would arrive; for holding on to that dream for a while, even though the reality was the exact opposite; and for the fact that my fear, first of him, and then of the legal system and the power of the Council and Youth Care, had been stronger than my urge to keep my children safe so that he traumatised them with his abuse during visitation throughout a whole year.

The abusive cycle starts once again

After the kids had visitation, from shortly before their fourth life year until shortly before their fifth life year, they recovered well right after I had put an end to it. We had a period of 2.5 years of peace. My ex didn’t bother us and didn’t ask about the children. In the meantime he had a new partner and had a child with her, after which he moved to the other side of the country with them.

Unfortunately, he saw the opportunity to start playing his power games again, when I needed his permission as a parent with parental authority to stay abroad with the children for half a year for my studies. Even though he had no idea how they were, because he hadn’t seen them or asked about them for 2.5 years, he considered it irresponsible to take them abroad for half a year and didn’t give his permission.

On the contrary, he demanded that they would come live with them, because all that time I hadn’t respected the visitation rights, and that he alone would get the authority, as well as an increase of the penalties to 50,000 euros. Of course, the Council and Youth Care mostly went along with this, so I didn’t have the opportunity to finish my studies leaving me in student debt. Moreover, my children had to start going to a visitation centre to start seeing their biological father again, a stranger to them, whom in their eyes they had first got to know when they were almost four, and with whom they had no connection whatsoever and also hadn’t built one during visitation, but because of his behaviour, had developed an aversion to.

Applying heavy psychological pressure

Both children were obstinate in their refusal of renewed contact with the man they refused to call father. The fact that Youth Care can ruin more than you want became clear once more. They put extremely heavy psychological pressure on the children to get in touch with my ex-partner, which they refused more obstinately every time.

Even when three adults applied pressure, by asking them in turn whether “daddy” could play with them, they kept saying they didn’t want Alex (they called him by his first name, or A., and refused to call him daddy) to play with them.

The fact that the three adults started to tell the children they weren’t being nice, that they weren’t good kids, that they weren’t being fun, and making arrangements with the children only to break them from the moment I wasn’t around, etc., didn’t change their mind. I am proud of the fact that apparently I have been able to teach my children that you don’t have to do something against your will when you have good reasons and you really don’t want it. The only person who has the right to demand this from them is me, the parent they have known for their whole life and with whom they form a good and safe family.

They have acquired traumas from the pushiness and coercion of Youth Care and from having to see their father again. They are going to therapy for the aftermath, but at school they immediately made huge progress after the process in the visitation centre had stopped.

Visitation centre

In the visitation centre my ex-partner and I had to sign a contract. My ex-partner couldn’t commit to his part of the contract, because he indicated a new job would get priority over visitation with the children. He took a job that meant he couldn’t follow the contract anymore, and yet the final report states it is my fault the process failed. Even the fact that the children and I got in a bicycle accident while we were on our way to the visitation centre – the result of which was a hospital visit – was interpreted by them as obstructing the process. In the visitation centre our situation was dealt with as a ‘divorce battle’, but you can’t a treat a situation in which serious partner violence took place that way. Neither my ex nor I recognised ourselves in the treatment method as it was executed. That was one thing we had in common.

For the last year we have received a family guardian due to everything that happened before. This person seems to put the children’s interests first. You can tell from the way the children express themselves that it can take a long time before they will be ready for contact (let alone regular visitation) with their biological father. In the meantime the last contact moment was in May 2014. A lot of peace has returned since then, but they now distrust adults because the staff members of Youth Care lied to them during the process of the visitation centre. They don’t feel as safe as before, because their father can suddenly re-appear in their lives, while they are terrified of him and absolutely don’t want to see him.

The helplessness, as well as the dogmas, prejudice and assumptions used by the Council and Youth Care, the gigantic lack of knowledge and insight among these agencies in terms of abusers, both partners and parents, means you spend an enormous amount of time and energy in explaining, declaring, defending yourself, again and again, in front of people who couldn’t care less that their assumptions about you, your children and your situation are completely wrong and based on thin air. Unfortunately, it is not surprising that a child dies at least once a week due to violence – and that the perpetrator and bystanders get away with it.

Infringing the rules

I have chosen to infringe the law and the legal system that fails on every level in this respect (which is unimaginable for the civilised country the Netherlands think they are) because I refused, and will continue to refuse, to see my children reduced to an article in the newspaper as victims of a “family drama” (which I call murder). Not my children, not me! Because if that had happened, Youth Care, the Council and the legal system that causes this type of dramas, would have blamed each other (like they always do) and everyone would have pretended to be innocent, which is unfortunately how it always goes with every incident that is published in the newspapers.

Maybe it looks I found it very easy to infringe the rules, but believe me, it is everything but easy.

The consequences of opening up your mouth are severe and there was even a time when I was counting to have to finish my studies in prison (at the time my ex wanted 50,000 euro penalty payments and he wanted me be held hostage if I did not stick to the visitation rights). But I can not put my children at risk through ignorance of insufficient specialized staff, who are firmly convinced in their hearts that they are doing good, but simply lack the knowledge to make right decisions.

Of course there are good youthcare workers. I have met and spoken to them for LifeSurfer. But if you meet an unmotivated and for your case unskilled youthcare worker, things can go wrong, irreversible and very seriously wrong.

Infringing the rules because of the consequences isn’t easy. But it is a necessity. It is my duty. As a mom.

Abuse, Interview, Mindset, Personal, Speaking