Collective Expert Academic Response to attempts to undermine the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls report dated 13 April 2023 titled Custody, violence against women and violence against children

To:                    United Nations Human Rights Council

From:                International Expert Academic Consortium

RE:                   Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, Custody, violence against women and violence against children, to be presented at the 53rd Session of the Human Rights Council

 Date:                June 16, 2023

Collective Expert Academic Response to attempts to undermine the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls report dated 13 April 2023 titled Custody, violence against women and violence against children. 

The undersigned law, mental health and child well-being professionals, family violence experts, and academic professors have become aware of a petition that is being circulated by parental alienation advocates to try to undermine and/or prevent the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls from presenting her report dated 13 April 2023 titled Custody, violence against women and violence against children to the Human Rights Council. In her report, the Special Rapporteur draws attention to problems associated with scientific validity and reliability of parental alienation concepts as well as to serious international concerns about the negative effects of parental alienation concepts on the human rights of women and children in cases involving domestic and family violence.1

In support of their claim of scientific validity, parental alienation advocates point to lists of publications. A close read of the research, however, reveals, among other things, that any cited research studies are not longitudinal research studies of children, lack control groups, self- selected populations, and are mostly retroactive, self-diagnostic reflections of adults and/or opinion surveys.

The Special Rapporteur is being accused by these groups of presenting misleading information.

It is important to understand that the Petition against the Special Rapporteur is merely another example of efforts to undermine and silence anyone who questions the scientific legitimacy of parental alienation concepts and/or who has documented the negative human rights effects of use of the concept in the legal system. Quotations from academic and professional authors are presented by parental alienation advocates out of context or are misinterpreted. Qualifications in published statements are ignored, personal accusations are made, and attempts are made to undermine professional and academic reputations. We have received reports from a number of countries of attempts by alienation proponents to pressure academic institutions into disciplining and/or firing faculty members who question or critique parental alienation concepts. This is not behavior that one normally associates with credible research or with reasoned academic debate; it is behavior indicative of harassment campaigns aimed at suppressing and penalizing dissent.

The accusation by PASG/GARI-PA and other parental alienation proponents that the Special Rapporteur is presenting ‘misleading information’ is part of a pattern of making the same claim against anyone who criticizes alienation concepts. Just a few illustrations of these ubiquitous claims include:

• Alehandro Mendoza Amaro and William Bernet (2020) Statement of the Global Action for Research Integrity in Parental Alienation (Research Gate Net) on line.

• William Bernet (2019) “False Information Regarding Parental Alienation and What to do About it” Power Point Presentation (Family Access-Fighting for Children’s
  Rights) https://www.familyaccessfightingforchildrensrights.com/uploads/2/6/5/0/2650 5602/family_access_false_information_regarding_pa_2019-10-03.pptx

• These attacks have been accelerating as abuse experts have begun to advance critical research and protective policymaking in the domestic and family violence Shortly after publication of Joan S. Meier, Sean Dickson, Chris S. O’Sullivan & Leora N. Rosen’s (2019) first-ever empirical documentation of the negative impact parental alienation crossclaims were having on mothers’ and children’s claims of abuse in U.S. family courts, two parental alienation advocates published an inaccurate article claiming to have disproved the Meier et al Study’s findings and leveling spurious accusations about the study. See Harman and Lorandos’ false critique of Meier et al.’s family court study, Journal of Family Trauma, Child Custody & Child Development, 19:2, 119-138, DOI:10.1080/26904586.2022.2086659; The Trouble with Harman and Lorandos’ Parental Alienation Allegations in Family Court Study (2020), Journal of Family Trauma, Child Custody & Child Development, 19:3-4, 295-317, DOI: 10.1080/26904586.2022.2036286. See also https://thecourtsaid.wordpress.com/2021/01/26/professor-joan-meier-rebuts- unprofessional-attacks-on-her-groundbreaking-research/

• Adherents of parental alienation theory also tried, unsuccessfully, to exert pressure on Routledge, the publisher of Jean Mercer and Margaret Drew (Eds. 2021) excellent book Challenging Parental Alienation: New Direction for Professionals and Parents (Routledge) to withdraw public circulation of the book – also on the basis of alleged ‘misinformation.’ When the pressure on the publisher was unsuccessful,2 parental alienation advocates self-published a public report online titled A Comprehensive Review of Misinformation and Other Inaccuracies in Challenging Parental Alienation: New Direction for Professionals and Parents online.3 Many authors who published chapters in the Mercer and Drew book are reporting academic and professional harassment by alienation advocates.

The independence of the special mandate holders is critical and is a prerequisite to their operation. The parental alienation lobby’s efforts to prevent this Report from being presented undermines this crucial independence. There is no precedent for their demand, and accepting it would hamper the whole mechanism of the OHCHR special mandate holders.

We, the undersigned, endorse the credibility of the Special Rapporteur’s Report and oppose attempts to prevent the presentation of the Report to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

• Similar concerns were raised in 2019 in a Collective Memo of Concern to the World Health Organization, endorsed by 352 concerned family law academics, family violence experts, family violence research institutes, child development and child abuse experts, children’s rights associations from 36 countries: Linda C Neilson with Joan Meier, Elizabeth Sheehy, Margaret Jackson, Ruth Halperin-Kaddari, Susan Boyd, Peter Jaffe, Simon Lapierre (2019) Collective Memo of Concern to: World Health Organization (London, Ontario: Learningtoendabuse.ca on line). Scroll to the end of the document for the names and institutional affiliations of those who endorsed the memo.

• For an illustration of other attempts to silence, refer to Retraction Watch, “Guest Post: What happened when we tried to get a book with misinformation about our field retracted” on line . Please note the unfavorable comments following the Jennifer Harman

• Originally the self-published report alleging “misinformation” was credited to authors (Rabbi Aichenbaum, William Bernet, Bjorn Cedervall, Jennifer Harman, Alejandro Mendoza-Amaro & Alissa Sherry). That version was subsequently withdrawn in favor of self-publishing the same report credited to the Parental Alienation Study Group and Global Action for Research Integrity in Parental In the second version, the original authors are listed as contributors.