The Rights Of Man

NORTH YORKSHIRE POLICE REVEAL ONE IN FIVE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE ARE MEN

An article from the Yorkshire Press (link) reveal that 21% of victims of domestic violence in 2006 were men.

As said before, the issue is starting to get a bit more attention, more like this and maybe the government and local authorities will start to listen.

CAFCASS MUST BE ACCOUNTABLE by BRIAN HITCHCOCK

The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS) currently sees around 100,000 children each year.

CAFCASS' welfare reports hold a lot of sway in the Family Courts as judges often follow the recommendations as regard residence and contact contained within them.

Currently CAFCASS Children and Family reporters are not accountable for the contents of their reports under CAFCASS' Complaints Policy. Their reports go into the courts as the finished article. The methodology of CAFCASS reports are often suspect. CAFCASS officers frequently make medical comments in their reports yet they are not medically trained.

How they gather their information and the interpretations they put on it is open to question. CAFCASS officers see the participants of Family Law Proceedings for only a limited time yet they make recommendations which have far reaching consequences.

Parties to Family Law Proceedings should be given the CAFCASS report in draft form pre-trial so that they can then question the content of it with the report's author and they should be able to make a complaint against the content of it. CAFCASS officers are only human they can make mistakes. At the moment CAFCASS' Complaints Policy rules out the prospect of human error.

There is a growing frustration with the operation of the Family Courts. Too often CAFCASS fuels conflict in the Family Courts. It would serve as a good quality control measure if parties to Family Law cases could complain about the content of CAFCASS reports. CAFCASS would gain real feedback about the quality of its service if it allowed complaints about the contents of its reports.

I am a Key Stakeholder in CAFCASS but it is not listening to my concerns about its Complaints Policy. CAFCASS currently excludes about 50% of all complaints it gets because they are about the content of its reports and not the conduct of its officers. Anthony Douglas the Chief Executive of CAFCASS is firmly entrenched behind CAFCASS' Complaints Policy and it will require legislation for him to budge.

There is hidden horror in the Family Courts. CAFCASS should be subject to the most vigorous inspections. Sadly CAFCASS does not accept that its methodology for constructing welfare reports could be suspect.

Too often false allegations are taken by CAFCASS officers as the truth and are include in their reports as facts. CAFCASS officers should not be immune to questions about the content of their reports. The Family Courts are supposed to be informal yet they are often a bear pit.

CAFCASS owes a duty to our children to be more open. Currently CAFCASS officers are known as the untouchables. There is an urgent need for reform in the Family Courts.

It is wrong that there is often open discrimination against fathers in particular by CAFCASS officers. Too many children lose contact with their non-resident parents because of CAFCASS reports. CAFCASS must engage with its consumers more if it is to progress to being a modern service with the welfare of children at its heart.

By Brian Hitchcock

Editors Note - Maybe CAFCASS should change its name to KAFKASS

For other people's views, look at these links (1), (2),(3) and (4)

IS THE GOVERNMENT STARTING TO WAKE UP TO THE INABILITY OF BOYS TO READ?

After years of neglecting the issue due to their politically correct belief that helping men/boys is not acceptable whilst helping girls/women is, the government have just started waking up to the fact that boys’ underachievement at school is a problem not just for those individuals but also for the economy and society. Boys are currently eight years behind girls when it comes to GCSE results and now less boys go to university than girls as stated on a previous post (link).

The Conservatives have already raised the problem of the under achievement of white working class boys through their Social Justice Report published last year (link)

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, has said that every secondary school should provide a bookshelf full of spy novels (link). He addressed the Fabian Society on this matter on 14th March 2007 (link). However, this is rather glib because there is no acknowledgement or practical support on the fact that boys need systematic teaching using the traditional synthetic phonic method early on in their educational career. As Nick Gibb, the Conservative shadow minister for schools said “… the real issue is teaching them to read in the first place”. 

Professor Rhona Johnston of Hull University explains the situation clearly (link).

Much of the blame can be laid at the door of the government who, despite promises, have not imposed setting on schools and, as stated in my previous post (see link in first paragraph), boys need structure and competition rather than the normal module coursework based education system we now have. A good précis of this appears in a Daily Telegraph editorial and subsequent debate (link).

As ever, the ‘Equal’ Opportunities Commission has been silent on the under achievement of boys at school especially when the current system has left so many behind. If girls were under-achieving, they would have been launching campaigns but because it is boys, they are not interested.

The education system has let down boys for at least a decade and it is only now that the issue has become so serious that the government woken up to the problem. Trendy teaching and the move from O-levels to GCSEs have all played their part. However, the underlying problem is the infestation of the ideology of political correctness, where boys/men are placed at the bottom of the pile and the needs of everyone else come first. A generation of boys have been under-educated because of this and the shameful fact is that until now, they have been purposely ignored. 

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A DISCRIMINATED MAN (Morning) by JAMIE WATT

First in a series of three describing a day in the life of a discriminated man

Part One – Morning

John returns to work after a few days off with the flu. His female colleagues are not impressed by this, and say he has only had “man-flu”, meaning that they believe he only had a minor cold and not the flu at all. This is just one of the discriminations faced by John and other men every day, despite statistics showing that men have a life expectancy seven years shorter than women, and that women account for twice as many visits to Doctors. As well as this, women have the benefits of screening processes and health targets for breast cancer and cervical cancer, while there is nothing like this for common male diseases.

Were John to decide to change jobs, he would again face discrimination as a man. Already this morning, John has had to move heavy equipment in and around the office even though there is nothing like this in his job description. The women would make fun of John if he refused to do this, but they do not realise that the vast majority of A&E cases and industrial accidents involve men.

On average, men work four hours a week more than women, and therefore pay more tax, but do not see any advantages from this. John may think about leaving his job, but his choices would be limited; very few men are successful in getting secretarial or PA jobs, and one man was refused a job as an air steward for being “too masculine”. If a woman applied for a job as a truck driver, she would be hailed a heroine, but men are often limited by their appearance, what they wear and the type of job they are after.

John would not be alone in looking for work – even though more men than women work, male unemployment is three times higher than female. There are several training courses aimed at recruiting women to certain professions, with funding available, but again, nothing of this kind for a man in John’s position.

During his break, John has to wait as he is expected to “be a gentleman”, but when playing that card, a “real lady” would wait to be offered. This is not the only time John will face this kind of unfair treatment today – although there are no statistics to prove it, it is a known fact that men have to wait longer than women for service in bars and restaurants. A prime example of this is a club in Covent Garden who were found to be letting women in for free while charging men £15 for entry. There is also a clear imbalance in the number of men able to get a taxi when compared with women. On top of this, there are also ‘women only’ libraries and swimming pool sessions, with women also wanting entry into men-only clubs. John cannot complain to the equal opportunities commission about any of this, as they have been shown to be unhelpful in these situations in the past, while all helplines and support group are aimed specifically at women.

By Jamie Watt

NEW PROSTATE CANCER TREATMENT AVAILABLE

It has been announced (link)Mediwatch have developed a new instant test for Britain's most common male cancer . Please heed the advice from The Prostate Cancer Charity.

Details can be found at their web-site (link).

SUPPORT PROSTATE CANCER WEEK 19th - 25th MARCH

From Monday, it is Prostate Cancer week which is run by The Prostate Cancer Charity (link).

Each year almost 32,000 men in the UK are diagnosed as suffering from the disease. One in three of them will die from it - one an hour

To quote their excellent web-site

"Prostate cancer was for so long a neglected health issue - neither understood by the public nor prioritised by politicians. By any dimension, prostate cancer simply didn’t register on the radar screen."

As John Neate, their Chief Executive, said that a "short-sighted and devalued NHS was compromising the care of prostate cancer patients by failing to provide them with consistent access to specialist nurses and NICE-approved treatments."

As much support should be given to this worthy charity including buying a Real Man pin badge from M&S or sponsoring Colin Jackson in this year's London Marathon.

WHAT IS THE BEST DAY TO HAVE AN INTERNATIONAL MEN'S DAY

Last Thursday (8th March) was International Women's Day.

This was celebrated with 135 events around the country (link) from celebrating women's achievement in business to Tower Hamlets council holding a women-only afternoon at one of its libraries/information centre in Bow, East London (link) . Men were banned from being allowed into the centre in a clear breach of the Equal Opportunities Act (link - 5th story down).

In addition, IWD is supported by the Welsh Government, London City of Islington College and the BBC, The Guardian, Reuters and Bloomberg.

The question then is when should International Men's Day be and would the above groups support it? Would ultra-feminists oppose it? Would council's and other public-funded bodies support it in the same way as the IWD, certainly worth challenging them?

Any suggestions for dates and reasons for the suggestion?