Believe the children

About one in five children in Europe is a victim of some form of sexual violence, according to Council of Europe data. In nine out of ten cases, the perpetrator is someone from the child's close family or social circle. In Greece, according to a study by the Institute of Child Health, the rate reaches 16%, that is, about one in six children.[1]

Every child who reports sexual abuse has a different story. The way Greek authorities treat these children, however, is largely the same: inadequate at best, dangerous and punitive at worst. What follows are snapshots from the everyday lives of hundreds of women and children in Greece.

What happens when a child discloses sexual abuse

Events usually unfold as follows: the child discloses that they have been sexually abused by their father and/or another person close to the family. If the child has a supportive mother or another supportive person in their close circle, a report may be made to the authorities. This rarely happens, however: only a very small share of child sexual abuse cases ever comes to the attention of the authorities or of any other service (fewer than 2 in 100).[2]

And that is when the ordeal begins for the child and their mother.

The father and his lawyers will claim that the child is lying because the mother has manipulated the child in order to alienate them from their father. In other words, they will use the legal ploy for defending abusers known in public discourse as "parental alienation syndrome" or simply "parental alienation".[3] They do not need to prove it. They will vaguely claim that the mother wants revenge on the father, and that is usually enough. Indeed, a study of more than 2,000 court decisions in the United States found that when the father claims "parental alienation", courts reject the mother's abuse allegations at almost twice the rate.[4]

As the court date approaches, the father's lawyers will take up residence on "friendly" television shows, where they will rail against anyone who has dared to defend the mother and child.[5]

Once the father's side claims "parental alienation" —and this happens in almost every case where a child has reported sexual abuse— a very specific mechanism is set in motion by the police, the prosecution service and the judiciary.

The child will have to recount their traumatic experience many times: first to the police, possibly also at the Child's House, then to judicial officers and to experts appointed by the prosecutor or the court.[6]

At the police station, the child's statement will resemble an interrogation. They will be pressured with trick questions, doubted, and offered other interpretations of what they experienced: "maybe he was trying to wash you?", "maybe he wanted to show you how much he loves you?" — often despite the child's persistent insistence to the contrary. All of this, of course, in breach of the forensic interview protocol for child victims.[7]

A forensic medical examination will be ordered, even months or years after the alleged incident. Never mind that, according to the relevant guidelines, forensic evidence must be collected within 72 hours at the latest and, in prepubertal children, within 24 hours.[8] And even if the examination is carried out in time, the absence of findings does not mean the child has not been abused.[9]

If the forensic examination —which is often not completed because of the child's reaction[10]— shows nothing, this will become a key element of the case file and a weapon in support of the father's claim of "parental alienation". Forensic findings are rare in child sexual abuse cases (fewer than 5% of cases).[11] If there are findings, however, they will be disputed, and there will be an attempt to discredit the forensic report as well.

The juvenile prosecutor[12] may order the child to be interviewed at the Child's House —the specialised service provided for by law for the examination of abused children— or may not. They may send the child to another public service, a hospital or a mental health centre, or even to a private practitioner on the register of court experts, even though a Child's House operates in the same region, in breach of the Code of Criminal Procedure and of the forensic interview protocol for child victims.[13]

The child may end up with a professional who specialises in child sexual abuse and who will listen to them with respect and empathy, following the required protocol. They may also end up with a responsible professional who declines to take the case because they lack the relevant specialisation.[14]

There are few professionals who meet these requirements. Most of them, however, now refuse to take on such cases. They have watched colleagues with similar qualifications receive threats and lawsuits and be publicly smeared, without evidence, by lawyers, journalists and the mandatory joint custody lobby, on television shows and in particular media outlets, with the tolerance of the state.[15]

In most cases, the child will end up with non-specialist professionals who will also treat them more or less as an investigating authority. They will produce an opinion stating that the mother has put the allegation into the child's head. This opinion may not even explain how the "expert" concluded that the child "suffered parental alienation" and that the personal experiences they describe in great detail are the product of the mother's manipulation. The "experts" may even examine the child in the presence of the accused father.[16]

In other cases, lengthy reports will be produced that seem to come straight out of the dystopian manual of the inventor of the pseudo-theory of "parental alienation" —and apologist for intrafamilial child sexual abuse— Richard Gardner.[17]

If the child is relatively calm, they will be said to show a coldness that does not match the experiences they describe. If the child is not calm, they will be said to be putting on an act. There is a specific list of arguments that the "experts" use to discredit children who report abuse. Either way, what the child describes, however many times they do so, consistently and in detail, will not be heard.[18]

These private experts, although appointed by the prosecutor or the judge, will demand exorbitant fees from each parent separately, of up to €8,000. They will already have met many times with the father alone and will be in regular contact with him.[19] The mother will feel trapped: she will fear that if she cannot find the money to pay these exorbitant fees, the expert will turn against her in the report and label her an alienator. And in the end, the expert will do so anyway.

The authorities will rely on the expensive opinion of the private expert who finds that the child's account has been suggested to them, or on multiple reports by different technical advisers, depending on the father's financial means. They will ignore any opinions that do not mention "parental alienation". They may even ignore the report of the Child's House, the body primarily responsible for the forensic interviewing of child victims of abuse.[20]

They will tell the child who is asking for protection that they do not believe them. They will tell the child that their dad is very cooperative and kind, and that children need to see both their parents. They will tell the child that since the forensic report showed nothing, what they describe did not happen. They will tell the child that since there are no witnesses, they cannot be telling the truth. And this even though child sexual abuse is a crime committed behind closed doors, where there are almost never any witnesses.[21]

Then the effort to restore the child's relationship with the father will begin — the so-called "reunification therapy". The child will be sent to a public or private service, where an expert will take charge of them with the aim of breaking down the child's refusal.[22] Often, the same service will also be working with the father.

And then the day will be set when the child must have a joint session with the father, the man they are terrified of. The child will refuse emphatically and may even be locked in the private expert's office. The expert will reprimand the mother for being unable to discipline her child. The expert will tell the child that by refusing they are breaching a court order. If the mother has come with a court bailiff to record what is happening, the expert may even call the police — all of this in front of the child.[23]

The private expert or the juvenile prosecutor may recommend that the child be confined to a public hospital, where only the father —the person the child has reported as their abuser— and his relatives will be allowed to visit. The prosecutor's order may even provide that the father's technical adviser will visit the child in the institution in order to prepare the child for reunification with the accused father.[24] There, the child will be forbidden from seeing the parent with whom they feel safe: their mother.[25]

The next civil court decision will order that the child must see their father, or will even award custody to him. On the criminal side, the prosecution may still be under way, and often the case will be closed or the judicial council will issue an order of non-prosecution. Even if the father has been convicted at first instance, he may well be acquitted on appeal on grounds of doubt.[26]

The mother's health will steadily deteriorate, and she will no longer have money for doctors, to look after herself.

The mother will accumulate sentences for breaching court decisions while trying to protect her child from the alleged abuser and from the state apparatus that backs him. Each breach is punishable separately by up to three years' imprisonment and, depending on how many complaints the father has filed against her, these sentences may add up to as much as 20 years. Each time, she will be given a suspended prison sentence.[27]

As far as we know, despite these prison sentences, no mother trying to protect her child has gone to prison in Greece — yet.

An entire system is designed so that mothers who try to protect their children are one breath away from prison. And the children, from an institution — if they refuse to go with the father they have reported for abuse. We have even seen the lawyers of some of these fathers shouting on television that a mother who breaches two court decisions on contact should lose custody.

Law 4800/2021 and the systematic violation of children's rights by the Greek authorities

The "Tsiaras law" stripped away even the few safeguards that mothers had in cases of domestic violence. The law names domestic violence and sexual abuse as improper exercise of parental responsibility only if the accused father has been convicted by a final court decision — something that rarely happens. For the mother trying to protect her child, by contrast, "culpable non-compliance" with a court decision is enough for her to lose custody or even parental responsibility.[28]

The Istanbul Convention, which Greece ratified in 2018 (Law 4531/2018), expressly provides in Article 31 that incidents of domestic violence must be taken into account when determining custody and contact, and that the exercise of contact and custody rights must not jeopardise the safety of the victim or the children.[29] The requirement of a final conviction is hard to reconcile with this obligation. Until a conviction comes —if it ever does— the child is forced into contact, sometimes even overnight stays, with the parent they have reported as their abuser.

The National Action Plan for the Protection of Children from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation (2022–2027) provides for mandatory training of judges and prosecutors in the principles of child-friendly justice. A fundamental principle of child-friendly justice is the participation of the child: the child's right to express their views freely and "the obligation of the judicial system to take children's views seriously into account". The Plan itself calls for "establishing the child's perspective as the dominant one" in proceedings that concern them.[30] The pseudo-theory of "parental alienation" runs counter to these principles, as it discredits the child's views by attempting to present them as the product of manipulation.

GREVIO, the Council of Europe's group of experts that monitors implementation of the Istanbul Convention, called on the Greek authorities in 2023 to ensure that judges and other relevant professionals are trained on the lack of scientific basis for "parental alienation syndrome" and similar concepts, such as suggestibility. In an urgent recommendation, it also called for an end to the practice of removing children from non-violent parents, or restricting their parental rights, on the basis of these concepts.[31]

Despite the provisions of the National Action Plan and GREVIO's recommendations to the Greek authorities, a 2022 paper by Ioannis Valmantonis, now a judge of the Athens Court of Appeal, remains online on the website of the National School of Judges as seminar material on domestic violence. The paper presents "parental alienation" as a form of domestic violence and describes allegations of child abuse "usually by the mother" as "the rising judicial weapon, particularly against the husband-father".[32] Valmantonis repeated the same views on "parental alienation" and false allegations in March 2025 at an event of the Athens Bar Association.[33]

In June 2026, at a one-day conference on "high-conflict divorces" organised by the Hellenic Society of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the head of the Juvenile Division of the Athens Public Prosecutor's Office, Aikaterini Mitrou, gave a presentation on "parental alienation", and the head of the Social Service of the Athens Society for the Protection of Minors, Athina Manouka, gave one on "false allegations of sexual abuse".[34]

False allegations of child sexual abuse are rare: in the major studies on the subject, their rate ranges from less than 1% to about 5%, while abuse that is never reported is far more common — fewer than 2 in 100 cases come to the attention of the authorities (see note 2). Even in divorce cases, where the rates appear higher, deliberately false allegations do not come mainly from mothers.[35] Moreover, the closing of a case or an acquittal on grounds of doubt does not mean that the allegation was false (see note 26).

Nor does the claim that an expert can "implant" a false memory of abuse in a child have any scientific basis: according to the international literature, this would require complex experimental set-ups and the cooperation of the person themselves, while there is no scientific consensus that it is even possible to suggest to children false memories of traumatic events, such as sexual abuse.[36]

The fate of child victims of sexual abuse is still decided in the courts on the basis of pseudo-theories.

Epilogue

Pseudo-theories such as "parental alienation" or the possibility of implanting false memories offer the state apparatus the perfect alibi for disciplining and punishing children and mothers who dare to challenge paternal authority. They are also a lucrative market for certain lawyers and technical advisers at the expense of children and their mothers, and that is why they are abhorrent. It is easy money, because as pseudo-theories they require no evidence or scientific proof.[37] The claim alone is enough. If it is accepted in court, everything that follows is a foregone conclusion.

This dystopia is fuelled in particular, though not exclusively, by a specific political stance and view of child-rearing: that of "black pedagogy".[38] It is no coincidence that misogynist, fundamentalist, ethno-patriarchal formations openly support the so-called movement of "alienated parents" —many of whom have been reported for abuse by their own children— while calls for punishing children and subjecting them to strict discipline grow ever louder.

No one claims that there are no parents who try to turn their children against the other parent. This practice, however, is rarely one-sided, and it is more often used by the very parents who, as a rule, perpetrate domestic violence and coercive control within the family — the overwhelming majority of them men.[39] Mothers who protect their children, and who may themselves be victims of domestic violence, often try in every way to encourage the children's contact with their father, even when the children refuse. They have been raised on phrases such as "Honour your father" or "Whatever he has done, he is your father and you must respect him". They have also heard Giannis Loverdos of New Democracy say in Parliament, during the debate on the Tsiaras law, that an abusive husband can be a good father.[40] Until they find out, of course, that the father is abusing the children too.

The ground on which these stories unfold is the difference in power and resources between parents within the heteronormative family. In patriarchal Greek society, it is as a rule the man who is socially and economically more powerful — even in a poor family, his social connections will be stronger.[41] And this power imbalance is reproduced intact in courtrooms and in court decisions.

We do not write these stories only to grieve. We write them from a place of anger, determined to win. We call on all women —and on everyone who, as children, could not speak— to join the campaign to repeal the Tsiaras law. Because children must be heard.

Believe the children.