Mismanagement of custody in contested divorce cases: parental alienation during the Covid-19 pandemic

Nowadays, with the increasing divorce rates, serious problems are experienced in cases such as custody and establishing a personal relationship. In the situation called Alienation to Parent (PA), the child exhibits rejection behavior as a parent because of unjustified and persistent denigration against the other parent under the influence of the parent with whom the child lives. In our legal system, it is still not specified what the alienating parent can do or what kind of sanctions will be applied against the alienating parent. The aim of this thesis is to make the PA and Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), which are frequently encountered in contested divorce cases, visible and to raise awareness of the experts working in the field and the parents experiencing this problem. In addition, it was tried to understand what kind of effects the pandemic process experienced in recent years had on this problem, and possible positive and negative aspects were tried to be revealed. The study was conducted in the judicial jurisdiction of Istanbul. In-depth interviews were conducted voluntarily with 10 family court judges, 10 ADM specialists, 20 lawyers and 20 parents whose cases were pending in Büyükçekmece Courthouse, Bakırköy Courthouse, Çağlayan Courthouse and Anadolu Courthouse. After the consent form was signed, the questions to be directed to the participants were asked by individual interview method, and the findings obtained were evaluated by content analysis method, one of the qualitative analysis methods. In the study, it was understood that most attention was paid to the age of the child in terms of custody, followed by the education of the child and ensuring the continuity of the familiar order. While the majority of professionals working in the field have knowledge about PA, it is understood that parents are not aware of this situation. It was understood that parents, who are alienated due to these problems, expect a solution to be brought to them by the system, while professionals expect that they will be given wider powers and multidisciplinary working areas will be enabled. Finally, it was understood that the prohibitions and restrictions that occurred as a result of Covid-19 had a reinforcing effect on the alienating parent