In recent decades, scholars and professionals have investigated the courts' treatment of mothers and children who claim that an ex-partner/father is abusive, especially in child custody proceedings. In Italy, Laws 54/2006 and 154/2013 established that joint-custody and coparenting are critical to ensure the best interest of the child. In the process of custody determination, judges can appoint an expert to assess parenting skills. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate the knowledge, opinions, and practices of the Court-Appointed Experts (CAEs) in child custody disputes in cases involving allegations of domestic violence (DV). Semistructured face-to-face interviews were conducted with 15 CAEs; the interviews' transcripts were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. Results suggested that in the management of child custody cases, most CAEs showed: strong prejudices against women victims of DV, who were often blamed and/or secondarily victimized; adherence to controversial models (e.g., parental alienation syndrome) and characterization of mothers as "alienators"; poor knowledge of DV and relevant laws. CAEs' overlooking DV underlines the urgent need to develop and implement guidelines on child custody decision-making in the context of DV.

中文翻译：

---

专家有多专业？意大利家庭暴力情况下的儿童监护权评估。

近几十年来，学者和专业人士调查了法院对声称前伴侣/父亲有虐待行为的母亲和儿童的待遇，特别是在儿童监护诉讼中。在意大利，第 54/2006 号和 154/2013 号法律规定，共同监护和共同养育对于确保儿童的最大利益至关重要。在确定监护权的过程中，法官可以指定一位专家来评估养育技能。这项定性研究的目的是调查法院指定专家 (CAE) 在涉及家庭暴力 (DV) 指控的儿童监护权纠纷中的知识、意见和实践。对 15 名 CAE 进行了半结构化面对面访谈；通过定性内容分析对访谈记录进行了分析。结果表明，在儿童监护案件的管理中，大多数CAE表现出： 对家庭暴力的女性受害者存在强烈偏见，她们经常受到指责和/或二次受害；坚持有争议的模式（例如，父母疏远综合症）并将母亲描述为“疏远者”；对家庭暴力和相关法律了解甚少。CAE 对家庭暴力的忽视凸显了制定和实施家庭暴力背景下儿童监护决策指南的迫切需要。