Sorry not safe: Children’s experiences of contact in the context of domestic violence

The UK has witnessed contradictory developments in promoting children’s and women’s safety when there has been domestic violence. Criminal justice has improved, but contact arrangements after parental separation remain dominated by pro-contact models that fail to take full account of the impact of men’s violence on women and children: child contact constitutes a significant site for post-separation violence affecting a significant minority of children. This presentation focuses on children and young people harmed in this way. Theoretically informed by feminism and sociology of childhood, and drawing on the authors’ qualitative research in UK child visitation centres, the presentation demonstrates how, in family courts, a pro-contact philosophy frequently displaces child welfare considerations; disqualifies children/young people’s perspectives; problematises their relationships with mothers; and exposes them to further abuse. Hegemonic ideas about the family, motherhood and fatherhood dominate popular and professional discourses. A graphic picture emerges of systemic failure to acknowledge the impact of violence on or privilege children’s (or women’s) safety. When concepts of ‘parental alienation’ or ‘implacable hostility’ were applied women, they were deemed incapable of representing children’s interests. Misconstruing women and children’s relationships meant that their protective strategies were sabotaged. Children were believed when they appeared to favour contact, but frequently ignored when they were opposed, leaving them isolated. With the complicity of private child law, the desire to bolster the nuclear family reinforced the patriarchal practices of violent men, at enormous cost to children.

The sociology of childhood provides transformative insights into the worlds of children and childhood, complementing those about gender violence derived from feminism. Dominant policy discourses in the UK ostensibly focus on children’s welfare, but where contact in the context of domestic violence is concerned, do not necessarily privilege their safety. Instead, children’s needs are constructed so as to legitimate the scrutinising and disciplining of women trying to protect their children.