Parent abuse still remains a not well-known form of domestic violence, even if it has been gaining attention in recent years due to an increased number of legal complaints made by the parents. A change in the social roles and relationships in the family and a different, more permissive way of educating the children have caused an increase of child-to-parents violence cases or at least an increase in reporting them. Although numerous small research projects and clinical studies have been performed in this field in recent years, the researchers still have not been able to identify undoubtedly all the factors that play a crucial role in causing this type of violence, probably also due to a lack of large national research projects that would include a large number of cases. Parents rarely report parent abuse because of the feelings of shame, guilt and fear of being judged by the people around them. This contributes greatly to the fact that this type of violence still remains one of the biggest blind spots in the domestic violence cases.
In the thesis I will deal with the problem of child-to-parents violence thoroughly, considering the criminological and legal aspects of this problem. Practitioners have discovered that the greatest risk factor for the development of parent abuse is the exposure of children to domestic violence, regardless of whether the child is a victim of abuse or just a witness of the intimate violence that occurs between the parents. Other risk factors are behavioural and emotional problems, mental and personality disorders in children, alcohol and substance abuse, a permissive or an emotionally detached upbringing, along with an unfavourable socio-economic status of the family and negative influences of peers and wider community.
I will focus also on the legal aspects of this problem in Slovenia and Spain where I did a research on the topic of this thesis. Slovenia has tackled the issue of domestic violence comprehensively with the Prevention of Domestic Violence Act from 2002, which also defines the roles, functions, networking and cooperation of various governmental bodies and non-governmental organisations in addressing domestic violence and identifies measures to protect victims of domestic abuse. I will point out the demarcation between the criminal offence of domestic violence and the misdemeanour of audacious and aggressive behaviour and we will look into the legal regulation of the restraining order and its weaknesses when it needs to be used against an adolescent. Then I will present the legal regulation of child-to-parent violence in Spain, where numerous studies about this topic took place in the last years.
An extreme act of violence against parents is parricide – the act of killing the parents done by their children. It occurs relatively rarely and just in special circumstances, usually when the child has been severely abused for years by his/her parents.
Despite the fact that this phenomenon has gained more recognition in the last few years, my opinion is that there is still a lot to be done in this field in Slovenia, especially in giving professional help to the victims and perpetrators of this type of violence to change their behavioural patterns. The state with its acts of repression and legal sanctions can give just a small contribution to fighting this violence, the most important part, however, is informing the people about this type of violence and by that increasing their awareness about the problem, giving them information about where to find help in such situations and assisting them in recognising certain behaviours as violence against parents.
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