Italy: Why activists believe Italy's divorce reforms would be terrible for women and children

Article here. Excerpt:

'In Rome, 100 women from feminist movement Non Una di Meno made their way from the Colosseum to the Capitoline Hill dressed as handmaids from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. From Milan to Naples, women’s associations, trade unions and more joined together to request that the bill, proposed by conservative senator Simone Pillon of the League, be withdrawn amidst fears that it risks turning the clock back 50 years for women, children and survivors of domestic abuse.

The bill is founded upon what Pillon calls “perfect shared parenting”. If it passes, any couple wishing to seek a divorce with children who are legally minors will be obliged to go through an obligatory mediation process that they have to pay for. With a professional mediator – Pillon is one himself, leading to accusations of conflict of interest – they must draw up a parenting plan deciding everything from residence to schooling to holidays.
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His bill claims to tackle so-called “parental alienation syndrome”, a controversial theory that one parent can manipulate the couple’s children to reject the other parent. Developed by American psychiatrist Richard Gardner in the 1980s, the theory is not backed up by research and has been criticized for placing abused women and children at further risk by allowing violent fathers to manipulate custody battles and insist upon continued access.'