Courts often ignore domestic violence in divorce custody proceedings
Domestic violence plays a role in approximately one in five divorces. In complex contested divorces, domestic violence plays a role in about half. But family courts rarely take the physical and emotional safety of women and children into consideration when ruling on custody and contact, the Verwey-Jonker Institute concluded in a study conducted for Vrouw en Recht and the trade association Valente, NRC reports.
Dutch family law is focused almost solely on the equality of parents and the interest of the child having access to both parents. As a result, “it is far from self-evident to take domestic violence into account,” researcher Kantinka Lünnemann told the newspaper. The researchers interviewed 127 lawyers, judges, and employees of the Child Protection Board, Veilig Thuis, and women’s shelters.
“The law stipulates that equal parenting must occur after divorce,” Lünnemann explained. “The fact that domestic violence is not considered is because when it comes to care, contact, and authority, the focus is on the interest of the child and the right of contact. Being unsafe is not the legal problem that family law deals with. There, domestic violence is seen as something that belongs to the criminal court.”
“Contact with both parents is best for the child if both parents are good at raising children. There is a lot of research that shows that it is harmful to a child if he or she is not allowed to see one of the parents,” the researcher said. “But if there is a lack of safety with one of the parents, it is a different story. It is better for the child to grow up with the safe, affectionate parent instead of being forced to have contact with the other parent with whom it is not safe.”
That does not automatically mean that a parent guilty of domestic violence should not get custody of their child, the researcher said. “But we do need to find out whether it is really safe with both parents. To do this, we need to gain insight into the dynamics of the violence and whether they continue. Because if there is a pattern of coercion, control, and intimate terror, there is a good chance that the pattern of violence will continue after the divorce,” Lünnemann said.
