Article by Foteini Lambridi on tvxs.gr about the Campaign's 2nd Open Assembly

"The repeal of the Tsiaras law has already begun, every time we gather and organize. This is a struggle we will win," read the invitation for the campaign "No to mandatory joint custody" for the second open assembly, which is dynamically laying the foundations for the repeal of law 4800/2021 — a law that kills women and abuses children, as tvxs has shown through numerous reports. The first assembly in the summer laid the groundwork and spread the message. The second brought us together, side by side, in the free social space Altai in Exarcheia, to listen to survivors, lawyers, social workers, women working at organizations against violence, and women who have simply grasped the scale of the crime and rush to declare their solidarity.

No matter how much we have learned through our reporting, no matter how hard we try to highlight the consequences of this law, it is not enough to describe the scale of the crime being committed as judges decide on the lives of children and women, guided by the Tsiaras law on mandatory joint custody.

More painful stories were heard about how the law forces abused women to live under the control of their abuser, about how children who have disclosed abuse by a parent are forced to spend the night with that parent, about how the courts not only fail to protect children but re-traumatize them with decisions that endanger both their physical and mental health, about how many mothers are threatened with imprisonment because they refuse to forcibly send their child to spend the night with a father who has been reported for abuse, about the apartments mothers sell in order to pay court-appointed experts charging fees from 10,000 to 16,000 euros!

And because the list of dramatic and traumatic consequences is endless, I will give an example like the one a lawyer shared with us.

"Photos of a mother, as well as clothed photos of the child, were uploaded to a pornographic site. The mother went to court to request the suspension of contact with this father. And despite this, from the bench they asked: Yes, but what is the relationship between the child and the father like? Are they getting along? The answer was that photos had been uploaded to a pornographic site. The judge was obligated, under the Tsiaras law, to examine the relationship between the child and the father! I believe we are in a country where things have reached a point that is not just third-world. We are living through crimes every day amid this shame," said the lawyer, who added that this dangerous law came to be applied in a country with very high rates of domestic violence, understaffed relevant services, and many inequalities.

"We are not at the level of other countries, like Denmark, where women hold a more advanced position. This law has leveled everything. Women are afraid, they don't leave their homes so as not to lose custody of their children, and they end up killed because of this law too, as in the case in Rhodes, in the case in Kalamata."

The good news from the legal world is that more and more lawyers are pushing back, though the picture is not the same among judges and police.

"I have been in a holding cell countless times; police officers don't know what they're supposed to do," says one survivor. "My ex-husband was outside my house, banging threateningly on my door even though it wasn't his day to pick up the child, and we ended up at the police station in the same holding cell. Me, the one filing the complaint, and him, the one who came to make the assault, in the same holding cell! Prosecutors are also bound by the law and consistently rule in their favor. And I think about going to the Supreme Court. But it's more likely I'll lose 7,000 euros and end up in front of abusive judges to whom you say 'I was abused' and they respond 'why are you acting like this'! In the courtrooms, it's us who have to bow our heads because we want our children to be okay, to not have psychological trauma."

Another mother testifies: "I have ten criminal cases against me, because my child doesn't want to see his father, and in court I have to explain that abuse isn't just physical violence — it's also verbal attacks and threats, like when he tells her: I will take you away from your mother. A female judge granted joint custody with residence at the father's in order, she said, to improve his relationship with the child, who doesn't want to see him. He doesn't pay child support, and I work to pay for the courts."

The abusive remarks mothers receive from the bench rain down at the General Assembly. "A judge told me, you had a child with him, so work it out," says one mother, who stresses that among the law's consequences we must also count the depression of children and teenagers, and more broadly the effects on children's mental health.

However, the legislator has not included social workers, as one social worker employed in a public service will say.

"We see shattered children and fathers trying to influence our reports so that we write that he is the perfect father. We are attacked by groups of 'active fathers.' A colleague had a complaint filed against her by a father who was asking her to falsify a public document so he could present it in court. He didn't say it outright, but that's what he was asking for. How am I supposed to protect a child when a law is abusing them?"

Teachers describe the same picture, as they have to deal with children experiencing the consequences of this law.

The answer to the question of why mothers were slow to organize, while the lobby of "active fathers" acted with complete organization, financial resources, and access to television, is self-evident: mothers were busy running to protect their children, to find money for the courts, to spend nights in holding cells.

At the same time, the government, which had been warned by UN rapporteurs about the danger of this law, not only does not withdraw it but, through carefully crafted provisions, shows that it is heading toward adopting the unscientific and dangerous term of alienation (at the end we attach related articles on the term, its originators, and the position of the scientific community).

The term "returned" to parliament once again (after the rudimentary public consultation where it was first heard) when Mr. Mitarakis, in 2024, through a parliamentary question, called on the government to take measures because court decisions were not being enforced. He meant that there are mothers who do not comply with rulings that send their children to spend the night with a parent who has been reported by the child for abuse.

The General Assembly made its decisions for dynamic initiatives ahead of November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women.

It remains to be seen when the bar associations, the opposition parties (elections are coming), and journalists at mainstream media outlets who have remained silent until now — even though it is their duty to shed light on this recurring crime, the re-traumatization of children and mothers, a law that arms abusers and femicide perpetrators — will take a stand.

Finally, women are organizing across all of Greece (the response from the provinces via online connection was moving), and they urgently need the support of other movements, immediately, concretely, and in every possible way. The campaign's initiative is there to receive that support. So that we are not left protesting after femicides occur, we must act to prevent them. And the repeal of this law is not just a good start — it is an urgently needed protective measure, and one that is already overdue.