Response to interpellation 2023/24:801 on children's contact with both parents in custody disputes
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
M believes that the child's best interests are crucial and that children should be protected from violence and violations 1. M emphasizes that children should be allowed to express their opinions freely without pressure 1 2 and argues that courts should deal objectively with facts 2. M argues that political decisions should not be made to forbid courts from raising anything as free evaluation of evidence is a fundamental pillar of the rule of law 3 and that the child's best interests and the risk of children being harmed should be completely decisive 3 4. SD argues that children are often manipulated and used as weapons in custody disputes 5. SD wants to see an investigation on how to better identify parental alienation 5, that social services' investigations are not always objective 6 and that psychological child abuse, such as manipulation of children, is criminalized 6. SD also wants visitation sabotage to be criminalized 6 and appreciates the work with Tryggare hem för barn 7. S argues that parental alienation is pseudoscience used to ignore the child's will and that Sweden should ban the use of the term 8 7. S suggests that Sweden should follow other countries by banning the use of pseudoscience as experts warn that it harms children exposed to violence 7.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! Runar Filper has asked me what I intend to do so that children are not wrongly separated from one parent in custody disputes after a parent has exerted improper pressure on and manipulated the child.
I have during the year answered similar parliamentary questions from Runar Filper. As I said then, it is a self-evident matter for me and this government that children should be protected from all forms of violence and other violations. It is not uncommon that information about violence and allegations that children have been improperly influenced appear in the same custody dispute. In practical application, it can therefore be difficult to treat the issues completely separately. Regardless, it is the child's best interests that are decisive in all decisions regarding custody, residence, and visitation.
Disputes regarding custody, residence, and visitation are difficult for everyone involved and especially for the children. In that context, it is extremely important that the child's opinions and experiences are truly expressed and considered. That a child has the right to express their opinions does not mean that the child should be forced to choose between their parents.
For the government, it is a high priority to make visible and strengthen the children's rights perspective in issues regarding custody, residence, and visitation. That was why, in June, I invited a number of Members of Parliament and representatives from authorities and interest organizations to a round-table discussion to discuss how children's position can be further strengthened in these situations. During that discussion, several interesting discussions were held, and the views that were submitted will constitute an important basis for the continued work to strengthen children's position in issues regarding custody, residence, and visitation.
In the area of family law, there is also an intensive effort underway in the Government Offices to develop proposals for measures that strengthen children's right to a safe upbringing, free from violence, based on the report Safer homes for children. A government bill is planned for September this year.
Runar Filper (SD)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for the answer. What I highlight in this interpellation is an enormous but hidden problem that affects both mothers and fathers, but above all the children who lose their relationship with one parent after a custody dispute.
Not being able to socialize and be a parent or see one's child for months, years, or decades is a tragedy for affected parents and many times a lifelong sorrow. Children are forced involuntarily to take a stand in a custody dispute, pressured to say things to the social services' investigators that the residential parent perhaps often expects. It can be such things as the children may have been fed daily for years.
A child who is in a dependent position to the residential parent says things that are expected of them by the one who has the child in their grip. The child is used as a weapon to achieve personal success in the custody dispute. Children can end up in a situation where they are involuntarily forced to repress their love for the mother or the father, which in the long run means that contact, perhaps for all time, is broken with maternal or paternal grandparents. It is a tragedy and lifelong sorrow.
The children suffer from feelings of conscience, shame, and guilt over taking a stand against their parent. It is a feeling of guilt that is so strong that it is easier to push it away, and it is easier to do what is expected and to repress and distance oneself than to fight to be reunited with their mother or father again.
The children who are perhaps around ten years old become so affected by all of this and feel so poorly at such a young age that they cannot manage to remain neutral and impartial in the parents' conflict. All the influence regarding how bad the other parent is and how bad they are, all the talk about how dad doesn't like or care about you, all the sighs immediately when the other parent is mentioned, all the control and all the texting and calling the child when they are with the other parent, collectively becomes a form of complete alienation where the father takes on the form of an alien and a bad person.
Madam Speaker! This affects so many - believe me!
My interpellation to the former Minister for Justice, Morgan Johansson, in 2021 was met with incomprehensible answers as if I wanted to force children to meet parents they do not want to meet. That it is important to protect children from violence we all agree on, but the issue that I highlight here is not about the children who are exposed to violence and violations, as the minister points out. This is a completely different issue; it is like mixing apples and pears.
This is about the fact that a piece of work, an investigation, must be staged on how one can better identify manipulation, indoctrination, and parental alienation, which untrained parents and relatives are capable of identifying but apparently not academics, authority figures, and politicians. I believe and hope that the minister opens their eyes to this very widespread issue and in upcoming investigations develops the reasoning that we are presenting here. I have great respect for the minister's work.
Laila Naraghi (S)
Madam Speaker! Several of Sweden's leading experts recently wrote in Psykologtidningen under the heading "Parental alienation is pseudoscience." Among the signatories were Maria Eriksson, Ole Hultmann, and many others. They describe how and why this so-called theory has been criticized for undermining children's right to participation and protection, as well as diminishing the significance of children's own statements. The authors of the article puncture the arguments that this would be a matter of science. It is not. It is, in the experts' own words, pseudoscience.
Madam Speaker! I know that the Minister for Justice has met Sanam Gharaee, the mother of Tintin, who was murdered during a forced sexual intercourse. She has, together with several other experts, recently warned that persons suspected of crimes against children use the pseudoscience of parental alienation as evidence to get the court to disregard the child's story. They recently wrote in GP about how family law disputes become an arena for secondary violence where the person subjected to violence is portrayed as questionable and the one who negatively influences the child. They wrote that courts, family courts, and other authorities often disregard the child's explicit will against the background of the theory of parental alienation.
Madam Speaker! Last week I was reached by serious reports from Uppsala Kvinnojour. They described how children and parents exposed to violence, often mothers, in courts are forced to defend themselves against the violent men's claims that the children are afraid of their fathers - not because of the father's violence but because the mother applies what is called parental alienation, a pseudoscience. "Experts" who claim to be experts on precisely parental alienation are called to the courts. It is like being called an expert on the earth being flat, also a pseudoscience. These "experts" describe in Swedish courts how parental alienation is a mental diagnosis treated with exposure. But, Madam Speaker, according to Socialstyrelsen, which is the responsible Swedish authority regarding safety surrounding diagnoses and treatment, there is no mental diagnosis called parental alienation. Nevertheless, the Swedish court, which falls under the Minister for Justice and the Ministry of Justice, applies precisely parental alienation in the reasoning on which the judgment rests.
This is perhaps the ultimate example of the Government Offices' and Swedish authorities' tunnel vision and the betrayal it entails for those subjected to violence. According to reports, Swedish courts are therefore sentencing children subjected to violence to contact, custody, and residence with violent parents based on precisely parental alienation, despite Socialstyrelsen saying that it is not a diagnosis and despite experts saying that it is a pseudoscience and describing in what way it is harmful for the children. It is astonishing that this is allowed to continue within the Government Offices' and the Riksdag's area of responsibility and supervision.
Madam Speaker! The UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls recommended last year that all states ban the use of parental alienation and related pseudo-concepts in family law and the use of so-called experts in this. Several countries have already done this by law in order to be able to protect children from violence. The laws have often been enacted after children have been murdered during forced visitation that violent men have pushed through with the help of this theory. I have received information from engaged Swedish lawyers and psychologists that bans have been introduced in Spain, Croatia, Scotland, and several American states, including Colorado, California, Utah, Tennessee, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. In Canada, Ireland, and England, work is underway on bans. It is urgent that we do something similar here in Sweden to protect the children here from being subjected to judgments based on pseudoscience.
I ask therefore: How does the Minister intend to act to protect vulnerable children from this pseudoscience?
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Madam Speaker! I thank Runar Filper for the opportunity to discuss these important issues and Laila Naraghi for another committed contribution to the matter. I have great respect for both members' genuine commitment, which I am sure is built on personal experiences, relationships, expertise, extensive contacts with civil society, and more.
Let me begin by saying that the very starting point for an assessment when it concerns custody, access, and residence is that it is the child's interest that must be considered. It is always the circumstances in the individual case that shall form the basis for the decisions that courts make. It is absolutely crucial that children shall be allowed to freely express their opinions and perspectives in these matters. Children shall not be subjected to undue influence by any parent, be pressured to state certain wishes or views, or be deprived of the right to be heard. This applies already today and also follows from other obligations we have, for example, the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
We do, however, know that in custody disputes it can occur that children end up caught in the middle and that parents try to influence children in different directions. It has nothing to do with a theory formation regarding parental alienation, but it is the reality in all too many custody disputes.
With that said, I still want to emphasize that the starting point must be that children shall be protected from all forms of violence and other violations. This is also the starting point for the work being done in the Government Offices to strengthen children's right to a safe upbringing free from violence, and we take off from the report Tryggare hem för barn. We sent a referral to the Council of Legislation before the summer and look forward to returning with a government bill to the Riksdag during the autumn. In the report, it is proposed, among other things, that it should be clarified that it is the assessment of the child's best interests that shall form the basis for these decisions. It concerns a holistic assessment of all circumstances relevant to the individual child, but there must be a much clearer focus on ensuring that there is no risk of the child being harmed. As I said, I expect to submit a government bill with this content in September this year.
For my part, I am hesitant to politically prohibit the possibility of putting forward different claims or referring to different sources regardless of the scientific degree of the sources. The courts must remain objective and critical regarding everything put forward by different parties in a dispute, also when it concerns custody, residence, and visitation, and of course base their assessments on facts and circumstances that can be verified objectively, and they must constantly start from what is best for the child. I am convinced that the courts are well-equipped to do so. I am also convinced that when we have the new legislation in place, based on the report Safer homes for children, the conditions to protect children from harm will become even better than today.
Runar Filper (SD)
Mr. Speaker! Social services' investigations are an important basis for the court in family law cases. The family law advocate Bertil Begander, who is familiar with the context, argues however that they are far from always objective. He has over 30 years of experience of custody cases across the country and has written the popular book *Sveket* on the subject. He says that the typical custody dispute is not about one parent hitting the other parent or who gets drunk during the weekend when they have visitation with the children. It is instead family situations where one parent is subjected to the other parent's lies and manipulations in order to cut the parent off from a beloved child. This is the typical custody dispute.
Mr. Speaker! Such cases exist in the thousands. It is usually the vulnerable parent who takes the case to court. It becomes the final legal possibility to reconnect with the child. The manipulation of the child may have been ongoing for a long time. The child has then, for reasons of loyalty, become skeptical of the parent and learned that dad is dangerous, mean, and wicked, and that dad does not care about them. These children carry fears that one parent causes with an image of the other parent that the children have not experienced themselves but have learned to believe in. The children become a pawn in the parents' conflict.
The District Court tasks the social services' family law department with investigating and assessing the family's situation regarding custody, housing, and visitation. But if the parent has succeeded in making the lies take root also within the social services administration, where is the objectivity then? It submits proposals for decisions to the court that all too often are more or less based on the manipulating parent's lies and the investigator's own assumptions. The court proceeds on the assumption that the family law investigation is conducted in an objective and impartial manner, and a judge proceeds on the assumption that a government official is objective and impartial. Custody investigations carry the most weight in the courts' assessment, but many family law lawyers' experience is that the social services most often take the mother's word as self-evident. As mentioned, this also affects fathers. Many family law lawyers want to see visitation sabotage criminalized, as in some states in the USA.
The interest in psychological abuse of children is too weak in society. People are fixated on physical violence, but one must also look at psychological violence.
It is now a criminal offense to let children witness violence between parents, which is a success in the law. The next step must be that also psychological abuse and manipulation of children are criminalized. This was introduced in 2019 in Denmark.
Of course, one must continue to work against men's violence against women – that is very important – but one must not forget the children who are subjected to manipulation, so that they believe the other parent is dangerous or unsuitable without any basis. It is psychological child abuse and should also be criminalized in Sweden.
Laila Naraghi (S)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister of Justice, for the reasoning! I want to acknowledge and show my appreciation for the work with Safer homes for children. It was our government that commissioned the investigation, and it is good that this is now being moved forward. We also appreciate the conversations we have had in the committee.
Whether it is theory formation or not, we Social Democrats note that the majority of experts in the field – psychologists and some of Sweden's leading children's rights lawyers, the Lex Tintin association and other associations – have warned that the use of this pseudoscience strikes directly against children exposed to violence. This is something that we in the Riksdag and hopefully also in the government need to react to. How do we handle this?
Other countries are stopping the use of this pseudoscience. How can we do it in Sweden? It is pseudoscience. It is not my word but the experts'.
For the sake of clarity: According to the Swedish Academy's Dictionary, the prefix pseudo- means "fake, sham-". It is therefore about fake science, pseudo-science, which is used in decisions regarding children exposed to violence.
That this type of pseudoscience is used by Swedish authorities and courts is worrying. It is our task to take this to heart and do something about it. It is urgent that Sweden does as Spain, Croatia, USA and several others do and prohibits this use.
We ourselves have spoken about the fact that we need to raise the level of knowledge in these issues among the judges. But how do we meet this? Could it at least be possible to look at how it has been done in Spain and Croatia and in several states in the USA?
I want to hope and believe that the government and the Minister for Justice agree that something must be done. I know that many are following this debate, and I want to say that I take it very seriously when there are alarms that this is being used to force children into dangerous situations.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! I take all reports of children being harmed or mistreated, whether it is in legal processes or in other contexts, very seriously. Therefore, my starting point is that everything we do shall be intended to give courts and other actors the best possible conditions to make adequate risk assessments. It is also for that reason that we in the new legislation clarify, which was not expressed quite as clearly in the investigation we took over, that precisely the risk of children being exposed to violence or other abuse shall be given decisive importance in a clearer way than today when deciding which parent shall be granted custody, access, and residence with a common child.
However, I am doubtful that we should make political decisions to forbid courts from taking up something. It feels, if I may use the expression, very un-Swedish. Now, this is not a criminal process, but the free evaluation of evidence is a fundamental part of our rule of law. The parties must be allowed to present arguments and submit different materials in support of their claims, and the opposing party must argue against them and show to what extent the material is pseudoscience or not. Now, I have not personally familiarized myself with this alleged research, but the court must, of course, be equipped to ask such questions. It can be a part – we do write that in the report Safer homes for children.
Even though politics should not decide how judges are to be trained, we do reason that the Courts Administration could appropriately take the initiative for educational measures regarding even better risk assessments in this type of dispute. This type of question can certainly be included in such a discussion.
But making political decisions about which arguments may be presented and which evidence may be used as a basis for those claims in a court context, I am, to put it mildly, very skeptical about.
However, I believe that a critical scientific debate with researchers in the field and with active representatives in the courts can be such forums where this discussion should appropriately be conducted. If it is the case that the evidence does not hold up, I am also certain that it will also have an impact in the individual cases.
Whether I listen to Laila Naraghi or to Runar Filper, I return to the fact that what is decisive here is actually not the parents' rights but the children's rights. On a universal human level, I can very easily understand what it would mean for a parent to have the opportunity to spend time with their children limited. It is not that experience or feeling that I undervalue. But from a legal perspective, the only reasonable starting point is that it should not be the parents' right in any respect that is the focus of a review, but the child's right and the child's best interests in the concrete individual case.
As said: We will clarify this in the legislation that we intend to table in the Riksdag in September. It is the risk of children being harmed that shall be even more decisive for the decisions than it is today.
Runar Filper (SD)
Mr. Speaker! Thank you, Minister, for the answer! Parental alienation is now recognized in Denmark. Following an agreement between the government and the parties in Denmark, cooperation sabotage, including parental alienation, is given a prominent place in the parental responsibility act. The consequence of the sabotage is made one of the act's fundamental principles.
It is also central that it will not mean that a parent who has genuine reasons to interrupt the child's contact with the other parent refrains from doing so for fear of being accused of sabotaging cooperation or parental alienation.
On the Ministry of Social Affairs, Housing and Senior Citizens' website, one can read that the agreement shall strengthen the child's right to both parents. It is the parents' duty to ensure that the child is not used as a weapon. Therefore, parental alienation, including parental kidnapping, shall be stopped to a greater extent than today. Where it concerns the child's best interests, this shall have consequences for the parent who prevents the child's contact and deliberately undermines the other parent's attachment to the child.
Here I have a book called Children who are forced to choose between a parent, which the minister will receive later. There is a letter in it, where it says as follows:
"Hello Gunnar! Thank you for reading this book. With an open mind, you can change the situation for very many children and families who suffer in the wake of the psychological child abuser's words: Your mom, or dad, does not love you. She or he only cares about their other children."
The child is left alone to grieve and long for [them] in an environment where disgust is the only feeling that is allowed to be expressed towards mother or father.
Anina Laroma, mother of a beloved and missed 17-year-old and chair of Saknade Barn.
FÖRSTE VICE TALMANNEN
I must remind the member that, according to the House rules, props are not permitted in the debates.
Justitieministern Gunnar Strömmer (M)
Mr. Speaker! Once again, thanks to Runar Filper and Laila Naraghi for the opportunity to discuss these pressing issues today!
I must conclude where I actually began. The starting point for the legislation is, and must even more clearly in the future be, that the child's best interests shall be at the center. We know that children can get caught in the middle in custody disputes. We also know that parents may want to influence their children, also in an improper way, in these types of disputes. These are also circumstances that the courts shall take into account when they decide what is in the child's best interest.
It is also important to emphasize that from a child's perspective, this type of influence is not necessarily incompatible with what is best for the child. It is simply a matter of what other circumstances apply in the concrete case.
One very clear thing is that if there is a risk that the child will be harmed in the company of one of the parents, it should in practice be decisive for how the issue is to be decided. It is thus the child's right that is in focus, not the parents' rights.
I can say on a general level that I believe it is often good for children to have a relationship with both of their parents – or however the family constellation looks. Then we know that it is not always that way. That is what the courts are to resolve in the concrete case.
I mean that the legislation that we place on the Riksdag's table in September will give the judges even clearer guidance on how those types of assessments should be made, and it will result in fairer processes and fairer outcomes and that more children are protected from being harmed. I am very happy that we will be able to carry it out with broad support here in the chamber.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.