From May 24 to 26, the Autonomous Women's Center (AWC) held a seminar on the topic of Global challenges of applying the concept of "parental alienation" in divorce proceedings, decisions on custody, and contact of the child with the parent in the case of violence against women and children. The seminar was held in Belgrade and was attended by 18 representatives of women's organizations from Serbia, who had the opportunity to learn about the topic through presentations and exchange of experiences with lecturers and prosecutors of the Higher Public Prosecutor's Office in Belgrade.

Experts from Croatia, Anita Lauri Korajlija and Nataša Škrbić, who for years have been dealing with the concept of "alienation" as a form of post-separation violence, spoke about the harmfulness of applying this concept to women and children who are victims of violence in the context of family law. Attorney Tanja Drobnjak spoke about the domestic legal framework and recommendations for changes related to the use of the concept of "parental alienation" in child custody cases in situations of domestic violence, presenting a recently published analysis on this topic that she co-authored.

Special attention in the presentations was devoted to the global context of this phenomenon, examples of good practice, strategies for overcoming the challenges that women's organizations face in working with beneficiaries when it comes to this problem, but also to warnings that come from all over the world, from countries where the application of this concept led to serious negative consequences for women and children victims of violence.

The presentation on coercive control and the connection between coercive control and the concept of "alienation" pointed to the necessity of recognizing these types of violence and the importance of raising awareness about post-separation violence among employees in centers for social work and judiciary.

Familiarizing with individual cases and connecting experiences from Serbia and Croatia is valuable for building a platform for common resistance to this increasingly present form of violence that is still insufficiently recognized in our context, but its consequences are both visible and dangerous, especially when taken into consider the attempts of "fathers' rights" and "men's rights" organizations to promote the concept of "alienation" among experts in the judiciary and centers for social work dealing with child custody.

The participants highlighted the examples from the practice of working with women who encounter this type of violence as particularly significant and useful aspects of the seminar, as well as familiarization with experiences from other countries, and an in-depth approach to the topic that enables further development of arguments against the application of the concept of "alienation".

The seminar Global challenges of applying the concept of "parental alienation" in divorce proceedings, decisions on custody and contact of the child with the parent in the case of violence against women and children was organized as part of the Strong resistance movement of women defenders of human rights for the protection of women victims/survivors of gender-based violence and their children financed by the European Union.