A post last week (link) outlined how Mary Scanlon MSP in the Sunday Herald had questioned the Scottish Government on why they provided no support for male victims.
This week, she directly asked leader of Scottish Government, Alex Salmond, about the lack of support for male victims in Scotland (link).
Instead of answering her reasonable question, he purposely chooses not to and just says that the majority of victims are women, that it is wrong regardless of gender and that he will keep the lack of help for men under 'review'. In other words, he intends to do nothing.
One of the weasel-type phrases that Governments use on this issue is to say that "domestic violence is wrong and every victims should be helped". However, there is a clear difference between what they say their policy is and the policy that is implemented. The latter of course, is to systematically ignore men.
Last year, 6,000 men asked for help from the Scottish Police because they were victims of domestic violence. In choosing to purposely ignore them, Alex Salmond is not fit to ever claim that the Scottish Government treats its citizens equally.
For information - a one-sided story from Fife (link)
Really troubling that men essentially have no political representation whatsoever.
You do get the occasional token conservative or lib dem willing to speak the truth, but never in any significant numbers and no one in any position of any significance will touch men's right's issues.
Posted by: John Kimble | Monday, 17 November 2008 at 01:53