EPS's Center for the Legal Protection of Children

The principal tasks and goals of our Centrum pro právní ochranu dětí (Center for the Legal Protection of Children; "Center" below) are to seek out threatened children, offer them expert aid, and help them find psychological and social aid. During 2001, we reached the conclusion that close cooperation with a psychologist and a social worker was a necessity for successful, holistic solution of such children's problems. We therefore went beyond just providing services for child-protection organizations and created our own circle of external partners. We cooperate closely with renowned child psychologist PhDr. Alena Uváčiková and several volunteers from among law students. We also took on a social worker, so that the third pillar of our work with our young clients, social welfare aid, will be as strong as the other two pillars, expert advice and legal aid.
The Center focuses on helping children who suffer the consequences of neglect and physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. We focus especially on "systemic abuse" cases, i.e. cases where the very institutions that should help a child are hurting him or her. Examples include bullying at child-care homes (and, in more serious cases, at schools as well) and secondary victimization by police, the courts, or child-care authorities during investigation of sexual abuse. The Center is currently handling about 15 cases.

The names of all Center clients were changed below to protect their privacy.

Sexual Abuse of a 13-Year-Old Boy and a Scandalous Decision by the Mělník District Court
Mrs. M. had lived with a husband who had long been physically and mentally abusing her. Despite this, she supported visitation rights for the father-until her son indicated that his father had tried to abuse him. Soon thereafter, Mr. M.'s new partner looked up Mrs. M. on her own, to relate her strong suspicions that Mr. M. had tried to sexually abuse her daughter. She meanwhile reported odd behavior by the M. boy during visits (e.g. he refused to undress and slept in many layers of clothing). Mrs. M. decided to seek help-she visited a social worker and followed her advice from then on. Even though the M. boy had been examined many times (by a social worker from the child-care authorities, staff of the child-abuse organization Fond ohrožených dětí, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a police investigator, a forensic expert, the judge competent to remove visitation rights, etc.), a judge demanded during the trial that he recount the matter again in a packed courtroom, before Mr. M. and his lawyer and the District Attorney. His mother protested, due to the many times he had already related the matter. Even though the court's forensic expert confirmed that boy was speaking the truth, the judge acquitted Mr. M. because she found Mrs. M. was "hysteric." To this day, the judge refuses to provide the child-care authorities with the document containing her verdict, in conflict with the law on social and legal protection of children. During the criminal proceedings in this matter, an EPS lawyer represented Mrs. M., the legal guardian of the injured party. The lawyer is offering legal advice, mainly regarding procedural complaints against the courts, and successfully initiated an appeal of the termination of the minor-infraction proceedings against Mr. M., who harasses Mrs. M. and her son to this day with phone threats and violent excesses in Mrs. M.'s house.

A Case of Illegal Placement of a Child in a Children's Home
The father of seven-year-old K. kidnapped her from her mother several times; during the last incident, the police found her in her father's cellar. Experts' assessments of K. stated directly that she bears, as a result of the father's pathological behavior, the aftereffects of child abuse, namely, of emotional cruelty. Despite this, a social worker proposed not a return of K. to her mother, but rather her placement in a children's home. Out of, perhaps, carelessness the worker proposed to place 7-year-old K. in a home for children aged 1 to 3, and this furthermore in conflict with regulations that required that she first be taken to a diagnostic institute. The courts fully accepted the proposal, and thus seven-year-old K. spent, despite various attempts to intervene, six months alone among toddlers, scarring her emotionally and stunting her development. Neither the court nor the state child-care authority officially admitted their mistake. The court conditionally halted the kidnapping trial against the father, adducing that this was a family dispute. That very day, another judge decided to retain K. in institutional care, for one sole reason: if she were to return to her mother's custody, another kidnapping was imminent, while if she were to be placed with her father, it could be expected, based on his past actions, that he would isolate K. from her mother entirely.
An EPS lawyer prepared a criminal complaint against the social worker, complaints against authorities, a letter to the Ombudsman, to the Ministers of Justice, an appeal against the decision that kept K. institutionalized, etc.

Courts' Sluggishness and Inability to Execute a Final Ruling Are Erasing a Father from His Son's Memory
Little T.'s father had a bit of difficulty in securing visitation rights after a divorce: during the last two years, he has seen T. for three hours all told. Throughout several years of proceedings, his father has faced countless imaginary charges, intended to bully, from his mother and her lawyer; the mother has flooded the court with repeated proposals to change his surname and to ban contact between young T. and his father and even his grandparents. She is trying to erase T.'s father from his life. T. is thus now rejecting his father. EPS is helping the father oppose the barrage of five-ounce filings and respond rationally and with legally founded statements.

Thirteen-Year-Old Rom Physically Attacked by a Corrections Worker
The attacked boy's mother refused to return him to the institute until the matter was investigated. As the boy's very institutionalization was disputable, we wrote an appeal against the institutional-care ruling and a proposal for an injunction. This case confirmed for us yet again the fact that no true system exists in our country for investigating violence in places where personal freedom is restricted-in this case, in a corrections facility. We eventually dispelled the threat of the boy's receiving "care" from the same suspected worker in the same institute, through informal steps: unofficial intervention by a Fond ohrožených dětí worker convinced the diagnostic institute's director to at least have the boy switched to another institute during the investigation, out of goodwill.

Aid to a Kazakh Refugee
M.V., a Kazakh woman of Russian nationality, has been living in our country for four years. Her two children speak only Czech. She was blackmailed in the CR by her former Czech husband, and probably also by her lawyer. Czech police banned her from living here when they found she had had a stamp falsified (she had done so because could not pay for a needed extract from Kazakh police records), and she may well be deported. But she essentially cannot return to Kazakhstan-she is Russian, tall, blond, college-educated, and Christian, with no male relative, and has children of Russian nationality, who are one-quarter Korean. EPS is helping this woman in her negotiations with the Foreign Police and other offices. We have also written an analysis of the flaws in the decision to halt her asylum proceedings; the analysis led the Ministry of Interior to overturn the decision through a Czech legal corrective measure called an autoremedura.

EPS's Advisory Center for Women in Crisis

"…then one day he came home drunk again, roared at me that I was a tramp, a good-for-nothing, good at nothing, and only in the way… then he took a long knife-the carving kind-and stabbed me in the hand; there was blood all over… I screamed a lot, but that just got him madder… he grabbed me by the waist, stuck my head into the sink, turned the water on, and then raped me from behind…"

EPS's Poradna pro ženy v tísni (Advisory Center for Women in Crisis; Center below) is an autonomous project supervised by Mgr. Markéta Huňková. Its aim is to offer women who have suffered serious domestic violence services that were in our opinion previously lacking in South Moravia: comprehensive, thorough, and especially long-term legal, psychological, and social welfare aid, which alone can tear victims out of the spiral of violence in which they are trapped.
During 2001, the Center broadened its activities and the ranks of its volunteers from among college students, whom we train internally to give them the practical skills and emotional resistance needed for work with domestic-violence victims. Besides legal services, the Center now offers psychotherapy, as well as consulting, in the area of social welfare (welfare payments, etc.). We are participating to great success in a project by the organization Magdalenium, which is about running confidential shelters. They help us to help our clients to hide from aggressors; in return, we provide them advisory services, train their personnel, etc.
The Center's vast quantity of work burdens its volunteers so heavily that, in early 2002, we interviewed for and hired a full-time coordinator.
The legal steps that the Center takes most often are ones in the fields of criminal and family law. The Center is currently handling about 30 cases. But it doesn't stop there-it also works to tear out problem's roots within the system. In October 2001, for example, we organized a conference in Brno regarding domestic violence for 25 representatives of the governmental and non-governmental sectors: NGOs, state institutions, the Ombudsman's office, lawyers, etc. We plan, as the capstone of our efforts, to organize a regional conference on domestic violence and create a "Regional Coordination Center," which is then to enable more effective solution of domestic violence in our region, by coordinating cooperation among those who handle it (the police, local branches of the state administration, and NGOs).
In November 2001, we took part in the conference "Domestic Violence-Old Problems, New Solutions," where the main ideas of EPS's project for intervening against domestic violence were presented. We presented there the acute need for legislative changes in this field. The Center also organized for the public, in fall 2001, a lecture series on gender issues.

We have only space to properly present but a few of the Center's cases below. Listing all cases, though possible, would abridge and thus distort them. Here again, names have naturally been changed to protect clients' privacy.

The B. J. Case
We will use this model domestic-violence case to elucidate the Center's working methods.
Mrs. J. married in 1994. After her second daughter was born, her husband took up drinking, began constantly switching jobs, and started handling his inner conflicts through tantrums and violence towards his wife. For lack of finances, Mrs. J. began sewing for extra income. Her husband held this against her-and beat her for it. In the last years of their common life, Mrs. J. and her daughters had to regularly lock themselves into the children's room to avoid Mr. J., so they could get at least a little sleep. The protracted stress the daughters experienced emotionally wounded them, and they had to visit a psychiatrist. Mrs. J. and her children eventually fled their home. After verifying our client's testimony was credible, we offered her comprehensive aid. We helped her obtain a divorce, alimony, and custody of the children. We filed for her a complaint against the police, who had four times assessed Mr. J.'s actions as minor infractions when they were in truth crimes, and indictments for the crimes of restricting personal freedom, battery, and violence towards a group or an individual, and a proposal to ban contact between her children (as minors) and Mr. J., including a further request for a injunction. As our aid is comprehensive, we went beyond this legal help to also provide psychological and social welfare help (mediating shelter for Mrs. J. and joining her on visits to the authorities).
Several times, we had to intervene during e.g. negotiations with the state child-care authorities, who were forcing Mrs. J. to reveal her haven to her husband. We obtained with no problems and within seven days a court-order ruling.

The police classified Mr. J's conduct as a minor infraction; our proposal for a restraining order barring contact with the father was rejected. Mr. J. began pressuring his wife to come back home, as did a state psychologist and a woman working for the state child-care authorities (to put an end, as she expressly stated, to Mr. J.'s urgings). Mr. J. began threatening the Center's staff and pressuring his daughters. This stressed and frightened them. The older daughter began wetting herself and suffering weeping and shaking fits. (Once, when her father attempted to have sex with her, she had a hysterical fit due to which she fractured her leg). The younger one refused to communicate and suffered eating disorders and fits of anxiety.
The Center promptly arranged a meeting between its staff, the responsible state child-protection official, and a state psychologist; they agreed to have the children's sole psychologist be an expert verified and recommended by the Center, and to hasten the court proceedings as much as possible. The Center filed a complaint against the police's approach and a series of requests for court preliminary measures. We also met with officials to urge acceleration of the court proceedings. Mrs. J. became an active member of the specialized psychotherapy group run by the Center. The Center found the children a contact for a new psychologist (as Mr. J. had attacked their previous one, who thus refused to treat them).
Mrs. J.'s situation has now stabilized, and her psychological state is improving. Likewise, the daughters are calming down and starting to communicate, and their psychosomatic problems are fading away.

The F. A. Case
Mrs. A.'s husband showed a violent disposition from the very start of their marriage: he regularly beat her, kicked her, and broke her arms, saying, "a real woman's gotta be strong, and tough enough for a little pain." In 2001, he also started attacking their daughters (aged 10 and 13) after drinking; this caused them psychological symptoms-depressions and suicidal tendencies. Once Mrs. A. contacted the Center, Mr. A. set fire to their apartment. We contacted the Police, who then took Mr. A. to jail. We provided Mrs. A. with comprehensive legal aid and found a job for her. The courts imposed on Mr. A. a suspended sentence for the crime of "drunkenness" and required that he enter treatment for it. (During his concluding speech, he "promised" he would do again all he had done.) No-one informed Mrs. A. of his release from custody, and so she and her daughters had to flee their apartment, with no time even to take along their personal items. Mr. A. then lived alone at their apartment until entering treatment, paid no rent, and sold off their furniture. Mrs. A. had to pay his rent just to keep from losing the apartment. Nor did Mr. A. make a single alimony payment. Mrs. A. was denied asylum, "because she enjoyed the title to a specific residence." When her husband entered treatment, Mrs. A. returned to her residence; she is now a member of a psychotherapy group. The Center filed a number of proposals, including ones for injunctions, aiming to have rental rights to the A. apartment go into Mrs. A.'s name alone. We also met with officials to urge acceleration of court proceedings.

The M. L. Case
M. L. is an entrepreneur… and a domestic-violence victim.
The L.s were successful entrepreneurs with three children, but when Mrs. L. contacted us, their home life was a failure: Mr. L. had long been acting aggressively. (He regularly beat and kicked Mrs. L., often forcing her to seek medical aid. She lied to those around her that her injuries were from "falling down the stairs"-she was highly ashamed of the state she was in.) Mr. L. then began drinking, consuming all the property and money he had, and much he didn't have; he began out of stress to also attack the children, whom the whole situation marked strongly (the daughter and the elder son began taking drugs). We provided comprehensive legal aid to Mrs. L. (who in the end did not give permission to initiate prosecution of her husband, out of fear for the life of her youngest son). She divorced and was placed in a year-long program of the Center's therapy group; we recommended a treatment center for her children.

The Mrs. C. Case
Mr. C. is a police criminologist at work… and a tyrant at home.
This is the most serious case of domestic violence the Center has ever handled. Mrs. C.'s husband holds a prestigious position as a police criminologist in Brno. He abused Mrs. C. for 22 years and always took a hard line at home-everyone had to obey his every wish, or be punished. After Mrs. C. finally contacted the Center, Mr. C. physically attacked her every day (threatening to kill her, saying that as a policeman he knew his killing business, pulling out his service weapon to prove it, etc.) and took revenge through the children. All of Mrs. C.'s attempts at resistance ended in failure, as Brno police treated her humiliatingly, and all her prosecutions were suspended (this despite sufficient hard evidence, like doctors' reports). Her situation was made yet more hopeless by the fact that she could not enter a shelter, since one of her children is strongly handicapped. Her psychiatrist (who treated her for two years) stated it was very likely she would crack under the stress of the situation and commit suicide.
The Center took every step for Mrs. C. that its contacts and the Czech legal code enabled. By strongly pressuring Mr. C.'s direct superior and threatening that we would take the case to the media, we successfully requested an agreement terminating the joint title to the C. apartment and giving Mrs. C. the sole right to rent and use it. Mrs. C. now appears to be much more calm and collected. Despite unexpected problems with the behavior of her grown son, we must state that Mrs. C. is coping well with her situation, has her life well within her hands, and will win her fight.

The Mrs. S. Case
The police receive a domestic-violence victim with outstretched harm.
Mrs. S. decided to flee her husband after 20 years of very harsh abuse (rape, daily beatings and kickings leading to broken ribs, knocked-out teeth, etc.), which culminated in a three-month stay at a psychiatric ward (due to a stress-induced inability to accept nourishment). She reported the last incident before her flight (rape and beating) to the police. The police recommended that she think twice before prosecuting. They interrogated her a total of eight times during the investigation-thrice in the presence of her husband. The investigation was conducted in such a way as to paint Mrs. S. as a mentally ill and thus untrustworthy person (due to the stay in the psychiatric ward) who was unstable and neglected her children (by leaving them). We must note here that during the Center's handling of her case, we learned that about 20% of women patients at one psychiatric ward in Brno are victims of domestic violence, who use such internment as shelter from a violent partner.

The Mrs. V. Case
This battered wife turned police advice into action… and was thus convicted for unauthorized interference in a residence's usage rights.
After living five years with a violent husband (who beat her, dragged her around their apartment by her hair, refused food to her, locked her in a room, etc.), Mrs. V. filed for divorce and filed several felony complaints; they all ended with dismissal "for lack of evidence" or classification of Mr. V.'s acts as minor infractions. Her husband began attacking more and more often. She called the police regarding several attacks, but during their last visit, they emphatically admonished that she would have to solve her conflicts herself. So she did. To prevent Mr. V. from entering the apartment, which she perceived as hers since she had been renting it since before the marriage, she changed the locks. She was found guilty of a crime: "unauthorized interference with the rights to [use] a house, apartment, or non-residential space" per § 249a, par. 2 of Act no. 140/1961 Sb. (the felony code). She received a two-year sentence, with a three-year suspension. She had to flee the apartment; her husband now uses it freely.