Είμαστε περισσότερες. Παντού.

Μέσα σε καύσωνα, δουλειές, υποχρεώσεις, ατομικές και συλλογικές δοκιμασίες, πριν από λίγες εβδομάδες γεννήθηκε κάτι πολύ όμορφο, ελπιδοφόρο, οργισμένο.

🟣 Στις 27 Ιουνίου 2026 έγινε η πρώτη ανοιχτή και ιδιαίτερα μαζική συνέλευση της Καμπάνιας για την κατάργηση της Υποχρεωτικής Συνεπιμέλειας. Μετράμε 5 χρόνια από την ψήφιση του νόμου Τσιάρα: ενός νόμου που αποδεδειγμένα κακοποιεί παιδιά και δολοφονεί γυναίκες. Στον απόηχο αυτού του θλιβερού απολογισμού των 5 χρόνων, συναντηθήκαμε εκατοντάδες γυναίκες, διά ζώσης και διαδικτυακά, για να οργανωθούμε, αποφασισμένες να καταργήσουμε τον νόμο της υποχρεωτικής συνεπιμέλειας.

Στη συνέλευση αυτή συζητήσαμε για τις καταστροφικές συνέπειες του νόμου Τσιάρα, μοιραστήκαμε τις εμπειρίες μας, σχεδιάσαμε τα επόμενα βήματά μας. Ακόμη, συμμετείχαν και παρενέβησαν φεμινιστικές συλλογικότητες από όλη την Ελλάδα, καθώς και άτομα από άλλες ευρωπαϊκές χώρες με τη βοήθεια διερμηνέα - ευχαριστούμε την Κωνσταντίνα από το Ελληνικό Forum Μεταναστών για την ακούραστη προσφορά της εκείνο το βράδυ.

Φυσικά, η συνέλευση αυτή δε θα είχε τόσο μαζική προσέλευση χωρίς την ανεκτίμητη αλληλέγγυα δουλειά τεσσάρων παιδαγωγών, που απασχόλησαν τα παιδιά κατά τη διάρκεια της συνέλευσης, επιτρέποντας σε δεκάδες μαμάδες να συμμετάσχουν!

Σε αυτή τη συγκινητική πρώτη μας προσπάθεια να συναντηθούμε και να συντονιστούμε, τα συναισθήματά μας ήταν έντονα κι ανάμεικτα: οργή για τους κακοποιητές, αγανάκτηση για το καθεστώς βίας και ελέγχου που ζουν αμέτρητα παιδιά και γυναίκες, αλλά πάνω από όλα φεμινιστική στΟργή. Γιατί από αυτή τη συνέλευση είδαμε ότι έχουμε η μία την άλλη και ορκιστήκαμε ότι δε θα σταματήσουμε μέχρι ο νόμος της υποχρεωτικής συνεπιμέλειας να ξηλωθεί.

Η συνέλευση αυτή σήμανε τη δυναμική έναρξη της Καμπάνιας μας. Μέσα στην τούρλα του καλοκαιριού, γυναίκες cis και trans και κουήρ πλάσματα από όλη την Ελλάδα οργανώνουν παρεμβάσεις, ενημερωτικές δράσεις, η καθεμία και το καθένα βάζει το δικό του λιθαράκι ώστε το μήνυμα να φτάσει παντού: “5 χρόνια είναι πολλά! Κατάργηση του νόμου για την Υποχρεωτική Συνεπιμέλεια”. Πρώτα από όλα όσες θίγονται άμεσα από τις συνέπειες του νόμου μα και όλες μαζί. Είτε έχουμε παιδιά, είτε όχι, ξέρουμε καλά πως ο νόμος Τσιάρα μας επηρεάζει όλες και όλα καθώς βαθαίνει την αντρική πατριαρχική εξουσία και δυναμώνει τον έλεγχο της πάνω στα σώματά μας σε κάθε έκφανση της ζωής μας. Τους δίνει αέρα κι εμείς θα τους τον κόψουμε.

Όσες και όσα βρεθήκαμε, δεσμευτήκαμε να ξανασυναντηθούμε τον Σεπτέμβρη σε μία νέα, ανοιχτή, ακόμα πιο μαζική συνέλευση, στην οποία θα συζητήσουμε το πώς θα κλιμακώσουμε με νέες, μεγαλύτερης εμβέλειας δράσεις για να καταργήσουμε τον νόμο για την Υποχρεωτική Συνεπιμέλεια.

Μέχρι την ημέρα που θα ξανασυναντηθούμε, μπορείτε να βρείτε τη διακήρυξή μας στην ιστοσελίδα μας, ακολουθώντας το link https://stopchildabuse.gr/oxi-stin-ypoxreotiki-synepimeleia/

#όχι_στην_υποχρεωτική_συνεπιμέλεια #τα_παιδιά_έχουν_φωνή Αυτό τον αγώνα θα τον κερδίσουμε εμείς!

We're slowly getting ready for the open assembly to organize actions for the repeal of the Tsiaras law on Saturday, and it's very important to us that everyone can come, without restrictions and without stress. Niki, Eleni, and Niki, experienced educators, will look after the children during the assembly. We thank them from the bottom of our hearts!

We're waiting for you, young and old, feminist and queer assemblies, collectives and individuals

Here's the event as well: https://fb.me/e/6UqgcKbG7 See less

Five years is a lot. The campaign @No to Mandatory Joint Custody calls on feminist and queer collectives, as well as all beings who wish to join, to an open assembly to organize actions for the repeal of the Tsiaras law, on Saturday, June 27th at 7pm at the Aspalathos art space in Exarcheia. The Tsiaras law Kills Women. For five years now, the campaign and the few organizations and journalists who have been documenting the effects of the implementation of the mandatory joint custody law, have observed a dramatic increase in the intensity of gender-based and domestic violence as a result of the policies and the climate it has created. The femicide of Vasiliki in Kalamata is a foretold crime of the Tsiaras Law. It is the image of the raw violence of the state that imprisoned her in a life with her abuser, under the weight of threats that if she left he would take the children from her. In the end, he took her life. Because he could. Because he was allowed to. Her murder and the barbarity in which she and her children lived, the trauma that two small children are now called upon to manage, are the result of the mandatory joint custody law. Of the regime of terror and blackmail it has imposed, for the benefit of abusers. And it is happening right now, as we write these lines, in thousands of homes. The Tsiaras law Tortures Children. A few days ago, news came that within 48 hours 3 mothers and all their children were murdered by their ex/current husbands and fathers. 13 people dead. In the United States, where the "men's rights" lobby started, the counterattack of the country's rich white cis heteronormative men against the feminist movement and its achievements is already on the next page. Not just women. Children too. All dead. Five years is a lot. Not one day more. We will not mourn more women. We will not cry for children. We will not go back to the dark times of the man/father Master. We do not intend to return to a regime of violence and terror from which millions of women and queer beings around the world have fought to escape – in every corner we shout that we, and our children, will live free. This struggle against the war they declared on our bodies, we will win. The Tsiaras law will be overturned. With organization and feminist resistance. We are waiting for you to fight together, on Saturday, June 27th at 7pm, at Aspalathos - Art Space, 129 Charilaou Trikoupi, Exarcheia. No woman alone and no one alone means all of us together. Here's the event! https://www.facebook.com/share/17VzqGD6GY/ Please click attend and join us at the assembly See less

From the statement by New Democracy MP Giannis Loverdos during the parliamentary debate on the Tsiaras law, that an abuser doesn't mean he's a bad father, to the entrenchment of the notion that the abuser is a good father, only five years separate us — from the implementation of the mandatory joint custody law and a line drawn in the blood of murdered women.

Yesterday morning we woke up to learn that Vasiliki was no longer with us. Her abusive, controlling husband slaughtered her at the knee, with the children watching the slaughter, just as they had watched the beatings with the belt, just as the neighbors listened to the screams, just as the police monitored the offenses reported ex officio by the neighbors and yet couldn't find the house. Just as we watch the state snatch the children away and dump them at the hospital, after the femicide of their mother, instead of them being in the arms of people who love them.

Just as we watch the articles by journalists, their news sites, the packs of "active dads" in the comments of the news, sketching out from the very first minute the regime we find ourselves in five years later. "The young girls had a very good relationship with their father, who savagely murdered their mother in their home," "Exclusive – Kalamata: 'The young woman was having an affair – He was watching her,'" and of course whitewashing the femicide perpetrator by spreading everywhere the narrative of the killer's...self-defense.

While we know, we knew beforehand, what a friend of hers publicly reported: "He had threatened her that he would arrange things so that she would never see her children again. She stayed because she feared for her life and for her children's lives."

We know, we knew beforehand, The Tsiaras Law Kills Women.

The abuser and the femicide perpetrator are a good father for the world being prepared by the far right, both in government and outside it, within New Democracy and elsewhere. A good father is one who disciplines and trains the state's future citizens to understand that his wife and children belong to him; a good father is one who contributes to the normalization of gender-based and domestic violence, and who has every right to punish "for the sake of honor," if need be. This is a good man and a good father.

On the battlefield we live in, within and beyond our borders, the Tsiaras law and its supporters are preparing tomorrow's masters and murderers. Tomorrow's slave and mistress. And children with bowed heads. The belt with which the femicide perpetrator beat Vasiliki will fall with force -if it isn't falling already- on children's bodies.

We have no intention of returning to a regime of violence and terror that millions of women across the planet fought to escape – in every corner we shout that we will live free, both us and our children.

We will win this fight against the war they declared on our bodies. The Tsiaras law will be overturned.

With feminist organizing and resistance. We will live. We will protect the children. Vasiliki, we will vindicate you.

# The Tsiaras Law Kills Women # no to mandatory joint custody

Five years was too long.

Five years of the Tsiaras Law. Five years since the government of Kyriakos Mitsotakis and New Democracy opened the door to the far-right lobby of men's and fathers' rights. Since they legislated within parliament and trained every judge in this country so that abusive men could blackmail their ex-partners using their children as a tool, so that they could exert power over and abuse children and women even outside of marriage. So that child support would be cut in half and their power increased fivefold. Five years since they passed the dystopian Kafkaesque nightmare of mandatory joint custody, so that no mother would dare report the abuse of her child, since she now risks losing custody and going to prison.

Today at 6 pm at Eteron (38-40 Leokoriou St., Psyrri), the journalistic investigative team The Manifold will talk to us about how the Greek authorities treat victims who dare to report domestic violence and/or child sexual abuse.

Speaking with them: Giorgos Nikolaidis Psychiatrist, Director of Mental Health and Social Welfare at the Institute of Child Health Kiki Petroulaki Psychologist, President of the European Network Against Violence Ioanna Stentoumi Lawyer

We will be there to listen to what we have been living through for five years now. Because recording and documenting is a tool of resistance.

Five years was too long. Repeal the Tsiaras Law.

Here is the event page: https://fb.me/e/6TjlP5wi7

"Every time we protest against the mandatory joint custody law, someone shows up to explain to us that joint custody is a good thing, that the child needs both parents, that many dads today want to have a more active role in raising their children, and above all that requiring mothers to raise their children exclusively is patriarchal.

After thanking them for this explanation, both personally and on behalf of my fellow activists, many of whom undoubtedly need yet another lesson on what patriarchy means, male guidance on what to fight for and what not to, an analysis of what feminism is, and instruction on the countless mysteries that the female mind struggles to process, let me say once again the following:

The child's right to be raised by both parents is recognized in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and I don't know anyone fighting against the Tsiaras Law who doesn't support it. The problem with the Tsiaras Law is that it doesn't protect this right. Nor was the intention of the lobby that pushed for the passage of this law to protect this right.

The Tsiaras Law has two basic, interconnected functions:

First, it constitutes yet another - the strongest so far - legal weapon in the hands of abusers, overwhelmingly men, though not exclusively, allowing them to continue abusing their wives and children even after the dissolution of the marriage.

Second, it has unleashed the biases of some judicial officials who want women to be "hysterical" and "vindictive" and children to be unreliable and incapable of expressing their fear or wishes.

The Tsiaras Law is not only not a child-centered law, but a law that violates another basic right of children: the right to be heard and to have their will respected by the authorities, a right also recognized by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Because, of course, children's right to be raised by both parents must be weighed against their right to life, safety, and protection from abuse. This law, in practice, nullifies this right every day in the courts, forcing children into contact, overnight stays, or even cohabitation with those they report as their abusers.

And it confronts mothers with a brutal dilemma: if they protect their child, as is their duty, and refuse to hand them over to their abuser, then at some point they will be called upon to serve the prison sentences that courts hand out for violations of court decisions, and their child will end up fully in the hands of their abuser, now with sole custody. Or the child will end up in an institution - as we have heard juvenile prosecutors and judges threaten - where, of course, they have an increased risk of being abused.

Moreover, the Tsiaras Law in practice allows the continuation of the abuse of women by turning children into a back door through which the abuser maintains control over his victim.

This law is not, in a general and vague sense, an endorsement of the good of raising children jointly. It was born and lives within a specific ideological space: that of the "men's rights" movements, i.e., those reactionary movements that demand the restoration of the "traditional family," the restriction and reversal of feminist achievements. A conservative, tradition-obsessed, deeply misogynistic ideological space.

The Tsiaras Law is not a law for the modern dad who wants to participate in raising his child. It is a law for the dad who is enraged because his status as head of the household is questioned, because they dared to raise their heads, because they don't tolerate his violence with the submission he believes they owe him. It is a law that allows him to put "the bitches and their bastards" back in their place. This is evident from the basic ideological frameworks that shaped the law and that inspire the organized groups that pushed for its passage:

First, the pseudo-theory of "parental alienation," a piece of quackery that has not only been completely debunked as to its scientific validity, but has also been shown to be the most convenient tool for ensuring that reports of child abuse and domestic violence are not adequately investigated and are dismissed. "Parental alienation" is the quintessence of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender).

And don't let me hear that I supposedly don't accept the obvious, that many parents put their children in the middle during divorces, that they badmouth the other parent, and so on. We're not talking about that. "Parental alienation" is not a colloquial expression for every conflictual divorce where children suffer from their parents' excesses. This happens, and it is terrible, but "parental alienation" is a specific "theory" with a specific history, and from its invention to this day it has constituted a courtroom tool, designed to adorn the defense arsenal of men accused of abuse.

Second, the myth of "false allegations" - whether of domestic violence or child sexual abuse - and indeed of their supposed "increase." A myth propagated by these groups, flooding the internet with articles referring to "studies" that supposedly prove it. Except that no such studies exist. These things are not measured in Greece; the studies literally do not exist. They are measured, however, in other countries, and there they show, on the one hand, that it is extremely difficult to define what a "false" allegation even is (One not proven in criminal court? One based on criminally proven perjury? What are we measuring? And where do we find it?), and on the other hand, to the extent that we acknowledge the limitations of the methodology, that "false" allegations are extremely rare. These things, of course, are for serious people, not for certain Greek judges who have swallowed the myth whole because it suits their preconceptions, and who have had it repeated to them by 4-5 psychiatrists paid by defendants accused of abuse.

And the mere fact that, at the very moment women are being killed by their current or former partners - having already sought help from the authorities and having been left unprotected - some people talk about "false allegations" should trouble every moral person.

And of course it is no coincidence that this myth of "false allegations" gains momentum in the wake of #MeToo, when for the first time the internet filled with women's stories about the violence they endure and the fear they are forced to live their lives with.

And here, as with "parental alienation," the undertaking is ideological: we're not talking about balancing tests, presumptions of innocence, the bar for criminal proof, and other such substantive matters that require not only research tools but, above all, basic recognition of the proven scale of gender-based violence and child sexual abuse. We are talking about an attempt to erase a phenomenon from the public sphere, to destroy the awareness that half the population is terrorized and/or abused at some stage of their life because of their gender, that one in five children suffers some form of sexual abuse, and that the perpetrators are, in the overwhelming majority of cases, men. We are talking about the systematic nullification of everyday, widespread abuse beneath an enraged cry of "The whore is lying."

Third, "contact at any cost," in other words the crude notion that "just because he beats his wife doesn't mean he's a bad father." That is, the idea that a child seeing their father (in reality: the father's right to see his child) has absolute priority, one that nullifies any act for which that father is being reported, be it the abuse of the mother and/or the child.

Look, we, the fellow activists fighting against the Tsiaras Law, maintain that even parents who are bad - most often because they are poor, but also due to mental health issues, addiction, delinquency, etc. - should be supported by welfare services so that they can become better parents and their children can grow up with them - instead of, as happens now, the state summarily taking their children away and sending them to institutions, until it hands over the most "desirable" of them for foster placements that are unreservedly converted into adoptions.

We are committed to recognizing and fighting for the right of children to grow up even with parents who need help in order to be parents. And we believe it is the state's obligation to provide them with this help. Abuse, however - violence - is off the table. This should be obvious.

And to make this clear, so there is no misunderstanding: any physical or psychological violence is condemnable. However, there are certain forms that stem from causes like those mentioned above, from which it is possible, with the right support, for a parent to be freed, to abandon, to "find their way."

Systematic domestic violence and child sexual abuse do not belong to these forms. The risk to the victims is far too great. And this should be obvious. In other countries, we have already mourned children murdered by their fathers during "contact at any cost." Must we mourn here too?

So every time someone appears to explain to us what a good thing it is for both parents to raise the child, or how modern dads change diapers, tell bedtime stories, sterilize breast pumps, and sit with their kids memorizing the rivers of Fthiotida, I find myself wondering: do they truly not know what we're talking about?

Don't they know that we are talking about women and children being crushed by the weapons that Greek legislation and Greek authorities hand out every day to criminals so they can continue torturing their victims?

But then I remember that when the Tsiaras Law was being passed, the diversion tactic was exactly this: the warnings of those who knew what we were talking about were drowned out in a general "discussion" about the benefits of joint custody and shared parenting, about the patriarchy that forces women to raise the children, and about modern parenthood. A "discussion" fueled not only by the organized groups with their propaganda about supposed "equal rights for moms and dads," or their natural fellow travelers, nostalgics of every stripe for the glorious past of the "traditional family," but also by quite a few progressives, leftists, and anarchists who said, "well, all things considered, Tsiaras and the right-wingers are bad, but joint custody is a good thing and women must be liberated from patriarchy."

And when I remember that, my question is answered."

Augustinos Zenakos is a journalist, a member of the investigative journalism team The Manifold