On June 23, 2023, the United Nations released a media statement and expert guidance in the field of human rights, addressing the urgent need for reform to protect women and children from violence in custody disputes.
WAVE: Vienna, 2022: In its report, WAVE states that the connection between violence against children and violence against women in the context of domestic violence—specifically the impact of intimate partner violence on children and issues of custody and visitation—is a critical topic that has gained increasing attention in recent years at...
22 October 2025 - "Groundbreaking' repeal of presumption of parental involvement in England and Wales 'will ensure courts place safety of children above all else".
Reem Alsalem mentioned the following during the press conference on June 26, 2025 (starting at 18:45):
(31 May 2019) The Platform of undersigned United Nations and regional independent mechanisms on violence against women and women's rights1 voiced its concern over patterns across various jurisdictions of the world that ignore intimate partner violence against women in determining child custody cases. These patterns reveal underlying discriminatory...
Nearly a quarter of respondents have personal experience with violence, and more than half said they know someone in their surroundings who has experienced some form of relationship violence. One fifth also pointed out that they know someone at their workplace who is experiencing some form of this violence. Among those who have personally experienced domestic violence, one third admitted that it affected their work performance. Most often, these were cases involving fear or humiliation. And these insights from our employees clearly show that we must not turn a blind eye to this issue and, as an employer, help address these problems," says Mgr. Adéla Heryánová, IKEM ambassador for the Charter Against Domestic Violence project.
In practice, this will mean, for example: establishing a contact person for victims of domestic violence, offering anonymous consultations with psychologists or legal experts specializing in this issue, cooperating with professional non-profit organizations and implementing clear internal procedures for handling such situations.
"In the past six years, we have observed a significant increase in the number of hospitalized children and adolescents in child psychiatric departments," said Michal Považan, head of the children's department at the Bohnice Psychiatric Hospital.
The largest increase is in the age group between 13 and 18 years. "It is clear that unresolved problems in children can lead to suicidal or self-harming behavior," he said.
A suicide attempt can be a cry for help, but also a reaction to severe stress or bullying. The Toxicological Information Center, which also deals with poisonings, handled such cases last year involving 469 girls and 59 boys. Seven years ago, the numbers were 37 boys and 200 girls.
Child psychiatrist Petr Pöthe: First witness in the Kulínský case. FILM VERSUS REALITY – transgenerational transmission
Time from 9:06
Petr: "Essentially, you have a memory disorder, meaning you can't really organize certain things from the past in a linear way—you don't remember them, but in fact, you do remember them, just separately from your conscious memory. This is because dissociation is very common. That means the part of you that was abused gets encapsulated and separated from your conscious self, and then this part somehow haunts you or gets triggered in certain situations, which can resemble panic attacks. Then there are behavioral disorders—running away from home, self-harm, experimenting with substances that alter your emotional experience. And of course, there are depressive disorders, emotional disturbances, issues with self-perception, and very often auto-aggression, because you blame yourself for what happened to you and at the same time want to deny it. So your personality is not really whole."
Nora:"There's no evidence for transgenerational transmission. Is there any documented model situation where a pattern can be passed on?"
Petr:"It's actually quite common—the pattern where a mother was abused by her father and then has daughters who are abused by her partner. That's a model of transgenerational transmission—abuse within the family, subconscious mechanisms. The abused daughter relieves her trauma by repeating it through her own daughters, with the sense that now she has control over it. By approving of it, she denies the trauma and simultaneously needs to repeat it, because the nature of trauma is that you have to keep replaying it."
Nora:"So you justify it, you keep it alive as something normal."
Petr:"Exactly. Because if you defend the perpetrator, you also rid yourself of the guilt of having been abused."
Time from 17:40: Petr: "In the early 1990s, no one here recognized the concept of child sexual abuse. I personally conducted a major study on child sexual abuse in 1998, where we proved that 25% of the population reported sexual contact with an adult during childhood. In general, children were not believed—people didn't think such things could happen to them. The fact that it happened at camps, pioneer camps, in churches, choirs, or within families was basically denied. It was even denied in court."
Nora: "If someone experiences this in childhood, does it mark them for life?"
Petr: "It can, but doesn't have to. Research—including ours at the safety helpline—shows that the most serious consequences are linked to two risk factors: First, if the perpetrator is someone you trust (a family member or someone very close), and second, if no one believes you and you have no one to tell. These factors are long-term predictors of serious life problems—relationship issues, eating disorders, body image issues, sexuality, self-esteem, and parenting."
Nora: "The impression supported by newspaper headlines—'the girls initiated it'—can you explain how that came about? The tendency to blame the girls?"
Petr: "They were in a subordinate position. Someone had power over them and controlled their fate. I'm afraid that's still the case today. I often hear from clients—victims of sexual abuse—that they're not believed. The sentences are extremely lenient."
Petr: "I even heard in a documentary by Robin Kvapil, a judge said on camera that if someone touches a small child's genitals, it's not really serious. A judge actually said that on camera."
Nora: "Wasn't that a judge from the regional court in Brno? They're known for those kinds of statements."
Petr: "In any case, I'm afraid the public is dismissive toward children. The general belief that children seduce adults is widespread, and it's the main reason why children don't speak up and blame themselves. Because they come to believe they wanted it. The responsibility always lies with the adult. But in society, it's often shifted onto the victims."
Jana is a Czech theatre and film actress and writer. Her adult daughter also joins the conversation, sharing memories of her childhood...
Jana:
"...And we had a female judge, and my child psychologist said that this was a sign of laziness—that instead of communicating with us and trying to help us through it all, she simply said that if we couldn't come to an agreement, and both of us were saying the child is sensitive, then she would place her in institutional care."
Agáta:
"Which is insane—that judges can actually do this."
Jana:
"Yes, they can. She specifically said she would place her in a neutral environment, because she felt both of us were putting pressure on the child, and that there was stress and tension, so she thought institutional care would be ideal."
Jana:
"No, she kept focusing on his demand, but by the next hearing—which was a month and a half later—we had reached an agreement. Maybe she wouldn't have actually placed her in institutional care, maybe she just wanted to scare us. But it wasn't a good solution, because she put the most pressure on the mother. Maybe she just wanted to simplify things, so I would sign for shared custody and leave."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByWo_2VAGuM
"Research shows that vulnerable individuals are able to leave their abuser only after the sixth attempt."
Why do they return?
"An incident occurs where the abusive person uses power/superiority and emotional, economic, or social dependency of the vulnerable person. This is followed by a calm period, and the victim tells themselves, 'It won't happen again.' Victims often blame themselves. Then comes a phase where the abusive person escalates, and the victims become isolated."
Transgenerational transmission of violence in families – what small children see and experience in the family. If violence is directed at a partner or a child, especially at a young age—under 6 or 7 years old—children are completely defenseless. They don't know what is normal, they can't assess that things are different in other families. And even if it happens to them, it's done by someone close—their mother or father. And what does a child do when something happens to them? They run to that close person. Now imagine that the person hurting them is the one they trust most—and they don't understand why. That's a huge problem. They often live in this for many years and know nothing else. It becomes their norm. They see these patterns, and only gradually, with age, do they gain an objective view of what happens elsewhere. But many of them can't break free from it, and only very few are able to say, "I don't want to live like this." These patterns are so deeply ingrained that many of them may grow up to take on the role of either the victim or the aggressor.
And this is the principle of transgenerational violence. As a society, we must all speak out publicly against tolerating any form of violence. We must also work with parents. Often, the parent grew up in such a family and doesn't know how to deal with it.
This is a task for our entire society.
("R" – reporter, "H" – Mrs. Hofmanová)
R: "I would like to take a step back, and that is the prevention from the parental position".
H: "It really matters that we build trust in those children from an early age, so that the child, if he trusts us, will tell us everything – what happened to him, what is not pleasant for him, so that he knows what touches on his body are right and which are wrong, and we should know, that up to 90% of sexual assaults on children take place in the family, or in the close vicinity of that family, and there is a need for us to realize that a child who lives in such a family where sexual assault occurs, so that he may not realize that he lives in a bad environment, that there is something else that does not contain these elements."
R: "In other words, he has shifted boundaries and then he tends to do so."
H: Yes, he tends and it seems normal to him that, for example, his father abuses him. And the point is that many pedophiles, who are preferential, marry mothers with children, or purposefully bring them into a pregnant state so that a child is born in a marriage that they could later abuse"..."and we must know that the perpetrator has one huge advantage, that he can lie and can lie from beginning to end."
R: "David Kozák killed 14 people at the Faculty of Philosophy. Have we sufficiently analyzed the case?"
H: "From my point of view, unfortunately, at least I did not see the feedback of the Police with regard to society, because immediately after the attack at the Faculty of Philosophy, I commented, or rather I hoped that the Police would say what actually happened, what measures they took to really prevent similar crimes...We really need to know, and I think it would be in the interest of the whole society, to see how such a person can develop, because from some psychological intention to commit, or a statement that he wants to commit suicide, there is a suicide such that he commits it at home, without any public attention, or he commits a so-called suicide with the help of the Police, and that is what the shooter committed. And I am convinced that society deserves us to identify the signs that the perpetrator showed – classmates must have known this, after all, there was a classmate who pointed it out, and the others knew that he was strange. The signs that we would define can be noticed not only by family members, but also by classmates and society, I think we should know and then we can perhaps intervene.
R: "So you are not one of the supporters of the theory that the murderer should no longer be talked about, because the act is actually exaggerated in some way, it is made known, which is perhaps something that the person in question dreamed of.
H: "Okay, but that's the own attack. But the signs that he expressed, as a person who is going to do something like this, I think that if it is generalized, ofcourse, we can start from studies that are foreign, there are a lot of them and the Police have them, so say and generalize the signs of specific perpetrators and familiarize society with them.
"Narcissists know how to wear a very charming mask. They can appear kind and modest, but once they feel threatened, they shift into strong arrogance."
"The most destructive consequences of this personality type manifest in interpersonal—especially romantic and family—relationships. This is due to the need to gain control over another person, the inability to self-reflect, the refusal to take responsibility for their actions, and the constant inducing of guilt. A narcissist's true nature typically doesn't show right away. At the beginning of a relationship, they are often charming, self-sacrificing, and able to create a sense of deep emotional connection. Gradually, however, their true nature begins to emerge. Through a slow process known as intermittent reinforcement, they place their partner in a position of dependency—on their opinions, moods, and emotionally positive acceptance.
If, for example, a woman is financially dependent on the narcissist during maternity or parental leave, the damage is often completed by actual material dependence."
The aim of the petition is to highlight the most serious systemic shortcomings of the current custody system in decisions regarding the arrangements for minor children.
Properly setting up this system has a fundamental impact on the living conditions of thousands of families and children each year, with far-reaching intergenerational consequences.
"As early as 2005, the Fund for Children in Need submitted a project to the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs that would ensure all cases of abused and neglected children were identified in time."
However, the Ministry ultimately did not support this change. Given the rising number of abused and otherwise endangered children, we hope it will reconsider. We will also try to persuade members of Parliament and the Senate to adopt the change, even if the Ministry disagrees.
https://www.sood.cz/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/zpravodaj-SOOD-2016-2.pdf
