Committee stresses need for mediators to be appointed
ALMOST 25 per cent of marriages in Cyprus end in divorce and it is the children who bear the biggest emotional and social strain, the House Human Rights Committee heard yesterday.
In the third related meeting the Committee, headed by Sophocles Fyttis of DIKO, discussed the effects of divorce on children and the steps that are being taken to support them.
According to Ioanna Georgi of the Education Ministry, most children, especially during nursery or primary school, face adjustment problems during the transitional period of divorce.
“The transitional period begins when the rows start at home and ends long after the divorce is finalised in court,” she said.
School curricula have special chapters explaining divorce and its effect on children and teachers are being specially trained, in cooperation with the Social Services, to be able to handle such situations, said Georgi.
Many children suffer from the financial difficulties, she added, and this is something the school can’t help them with.
In the two previous sessions on the subject, the Committee was given the example of a teenager who was forced to work at a fast food chain when the parents split and the father refusal to help out. The student was held back a year at school for missing too many lessons.
Georgiou said that the Ministry was sensitised towards situations such as these, but the financial status of a child’s family cannot stand as criteria to justify extensive absences from school.
“Unfortunately there is no legislative window in schools to help children who are absent due to family difficulties,” she pointed out.
Concluding, Georgi said the Ministry’s priorities were to support the children, increase teacher psychologists, re-educate teachers and adopt legislation which will put parents in direct cooperation with schools.
Head of the Ministry’s Child Psychology Services Michalis Ioannou blamed most problems on the parents.
“The problem is that parents just don’t care. From experience, only five per cent of parents have come when we’ve invited them for discussions over their child.
“Some parents believe that children grow up by themselves and they leave everything to the teachers. If we don’t pay the necessary attention during childhood, then tomorrow we will be talking about drugs.”
The Ministry, he continued, does not have a special programme for children with divorced parents. It does, however, have many other programmes from which the children can benefit.
The services deal with roughly 4,000 cases a year with 33 specially trained teachers to deal with them. “We are in contact with teachers and parents on a daily basis,” said Ioannou.
Toulla Michaelidou of the Welfare Office pointed out that there is a special service in each region, which deals with parental guidance. “They support and help parents going through divorce and, depending on their problems and needs, they are given financial and family aid.”
Speaking on behalf of the police, Costas Deis informed the Committee that 30 per cent of violent cases are due to domestic violence. “The police can see that there really are unresolved problems in Cyprus related to violence from husbands, ex-husbands or estranged husbands. The problem of domestic violence continues after the divorce as well”.
In response to previous accusations against the police, of leniency and downright indifference where serious matters like domestic violence and signature forgery are concerned, Deis listed a number of initiatives taken by police in order to deal with such matters.
“We have specially trained officers – around 400 members – who are taught to deal with victims of domestic violence. And it is strictly stated in legislation that women officers are to deal with female victims of violence.”
And the position of the police on forgery is firm: “Signature forgery is a criminal offence. If it occurs between spouses then the police will take a written report, which will be sent to the Attorney-general.”
Head of the Pancyprian Divorced Women’s Association Loulla Savvidou submitted a memo to the Committee stressing the importance of two things: the effects of divorce on small children and the situations some women have found themselves in after signing as guarantors for their ex-husbands.
Banks didn’t give sufficient explanations or plans for dealing with the matter of guarantors, said the memo. “They threw dust in our eyes, mentioning a bank mediator, which will happen in the future.
“But our problems are here today – not tomorrow – and we want a solution to them today.”
So far the Human Rights Committee has heard a list of cases relating to women signing as guarantors or giving Power of Attorney to their ex-husbands, only to find themselves up to their necks in debt after they have divorced.
Finally Deis expressed the police’s opinion that the appointment of a specially trained mediator for divorce cases will be a very important step forward.
At last week’s meeting, suggestions were made to appoint special mediators who will go through the process of divorce with the affected and help the two parties reach amicable decisions on matters such as child custody and alimony. The final agreement will be put forward to the court and, provided it is legally feasible, will be adopted by the judge.
Law Commissioner and President of Ethnopad, the National Organisation for the Protection of Human Rights, Leda Koursoumba informed the Committee that her report suggesting the divorce mediator takes legislative form is nearly complete and will be submitted soon.
AKEL deputy Eleni Mavrou asked the Ministry how it proposed schools are better informed on children’s family situations. Georgi suggested that the Welfare Office inform schools when a child’s parents have divorced.
Koursoumba strongly objected to this notion. “We are talking about human beings. Details of their personal life cannot be handed out, these are personal situations.”
She went on to give an example, which touched the hearts of all there. “A little girl was late every day for school so in the end she was expelled. It was only after she had left that her little friend told teachers that the girl’s mother was on her deathbed with cancer and that every morning before she came to school she would bathe and dress her mum.”
But she chose not to inform her school that, said Koursoumba, was her human right.
