Parental Alienation
is Child Abuse.
Supporting survivors | RAising awareness
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PARENTAL ALIENATION
Parental alienation happens when one parent manipulates or influences a child to reject, fear, or avoid the other parent, without any legitimate reason. It can occur subtly over time or more aggressively through lies, emotional pressure, or constant negativity about the other parent.
PARENTAL CO-OPERATION
Even after separation, children need both parents to work together respectfully and consistently. Parental cooperation isn’t about being friends, it’s about building a stable, united front where the child feels loved, supported, and free to have a relationship with both parents.
The Origin of PAPA
PAPA – Parents Against Parental Alienation – was founded in George, South Africa, by Angelique Kleynhans and Johan Swart. What began as a small support group for parents being systematically alienated from their children quickly exposed a larger national crisis. The patterns were repeating — across families, courts, and institutions — with devastating psychological consequences.
Within months, the group expanded into a national movement. Today, PAPA unites parents, grandparents, educators, professionals, and concerned citizens around one uncompromising truth: Parental Alienation is Child Abuse.
This is not a custody dispute. It is a structural assault on the identity of a child — a campaign of erasure carried out through manipulation, silence, and coercion. PAPA confronts that reality without flinching.
We exist to expose the truth, protect the child, and support the parent who refuses to disappear. This movement was born from pain, but it is led by principle. We are not here to inflame conflict. We are here to end abuse.
CORE VALUES
Children have the right to love and be loved by both parents.
Equal shared parenting should be the default.
Parental alienation is child abuse and must be treated as such.
Silence enables abuse. Awareness stops it.
This is not about parental rights. It is about children’s rights.
JOIN OUR COMMUNITY
PAPA has established dedicated WhatsApp support groups for every province in South Africa, ensuring parents have access to local networks of guidance and solidarity.
Eastern Cape
Free State
Gauteng
KwaZulu-Natal
Limpopo
Mpumalanga
North West
Northern Cape
Western Cape
“Parental Alienation is an emotional act of violence that is aimed at an adult, but critically wounds a child.”