Reem Alsalem: Silencing Survivors, Stereotyping Dads, Ignoring the Science

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Contact: Mike Buchanan

Telephone: +44 7967 026163

Reem Alsalem: Silencing Survivors, Stereotyping Dads, Ignoring the Science

June 26, 2023 – “I’ve spent most of my childhood, adolescence, and teenage years grappling with self-esteem issues, anxiety, depression, eating issues, difficulty managing relationships, trust issues.” This admission by a 29-year-old woman — whose mother estranged her from her father at the age of nine — reveals the long-lasting severity of parental alienation (1).

But during Friday’s concluding remarks to the Human Rights Council (2), Special Rapporteur Reem Alsalem chose to silence the voices of parental alienation survivors.

Instead, she made a series of claims that are transparently false:

CLAIM: “Parental alienation was sometimes misused against fathers, but was predominantly misused against mothers.” FACT: Scientific surveys show that fathers and mothers are equally likely to be accused of child alienation (3).
CLAIM: “The majority of domestic violence was male violence.” FACT: A review of hundreds of domestic violence studies conducted in over 40 countries concludes, “women are as physically aggressive as men (or more) in their relationships with their spouses or opposite-sex partners.” (4)
CLAIM: “Parental alienation was not a scientific theory.” FACT: Parental alienation has been reviewed and affirmed in numerous scientific textbooks such as Psychiatry in Law / Law in Psychiatry; Principles and Practice of Child and Adolescent Forensic Mental Health; Salem Health Psychology and Mental Health; Cultural Sociology of Divorce: An Encyclopedia; and many others (5).

Even more disturbing is how Alsalem ignored these important research findings:

Globally, mothers commit 72% of all infant homicides (6).
Children residing with a single mother have a 7-fold higher risk of suffering fatal child abuse, according to a large-scale British study (7).
Joint-custody policies lead to lower rates of domestic violence (8).

The Human Rights Council should censure Reem Alsalem for exploiting her position to make claims and promote policies that are harmful to the human rights of children and families.

The Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance – DAVIA — consists of 95 member organizations from 33 countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. DAVIA seeks to ensure that domestic violence and abuse polices are science-based, family-affirming, and gender-inclusive. https://endtodv.org/davia/

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