Canada Research Chair Dr. Myrna Dawson delivers a keynote address on Thursday at a conference in Prato, Italy, being held to address the socio-legal problem of the killing of children by their parents or guardians. “Addressing Filicide: Inaugural International Conference for Cross National Dialogue” will begin cross-national and inter-professional discussions among researchers, policy leaders and developers, as well as professionals from legal, court, child protection, child/family welfare, health and mental health services. The goal is to identify and develop common local and global themes that will enable participants to work towards a coordinated agenda for addressing the various issues that contribute to the problem of filicide. Dr. Dawson will discuss current and changing patterns in filicide in Canada during the past several decades, identifying gender differences in the characteristics of these cases, and discuss some preliminary findings from her research on the law’s response to these killings with respect to subsequent convictions and sentences. The conference is being held on May 30-31 at the Monash Prato Centre, Tuscany, and is co-sponsored by the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing, and Health Sciences and the Faculty of Arts. Participants are attending from Australia, Canada, Chile, South African, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
