The Rights Of Man

PLIGHT OF SCOTTISH MALE DOMESTIC ABUSE VICTIMS REVEALED

Figures (press release and report) released by the Scottish Government revealed that since the turn of the century there has been a 130% increase in the number of men being victims of domestic abuse in Scotland. In 2000-01, there were 2,873 incidents reported to the police rising to 6,753 in 2007-08.

Male victims now make up 12% of all reported victims, though of course, there will be a staggering amount of under-reporting because many male victims don't go to the police and if they do, of course many are not believed. As 40% of victims, according to the British Crime Survey (an anonymous survey) are men it shows the level of under-reporting.

The scandal which has been reported on this site (link and link) is that the Alex Salmond and his Scottish Government steadfastly refuse to do anything about it and not one penny spent in Scotland for domestic violence victims is spent on men. In fact, Salmond and the Scottish Government seem quite pleased with themselves about it.

This is the level of cynicism and antipathy there is about men in Scotland and the nation therefore remains a hotbed of anti-male activity. They can no longer justify excluding men if they believe in equality.

The report was well covered in many areas including an interview on Scottish TV:-

Scottish TV, BBC, Aberdeen Press and Journal, Times

There were also reports in papers like the Scotsman and the Dundee Courier but they disgracefully ignored the male issue so are not deemed worthy of a link.

DOMESTICE VIOLENCE AWARENESS WEEK 2008 - PLEASE REPORT FAILURES TO MENTION MEN

The 2008 Domestic Violence Awareness Week (as part of the Stop Violence Against Women campaign) starts on Tuesday 25th November.

If there are media features and local campaigns on domestic abuse or domestic violence that you see that do not feature the plight of male victims as well as those of women, please let this site know.

These examples of bias are worth publicising and one charity, The ManKind Initiative (who have produced up-to-date domestic violence statistics) wants to make sure they have a list so they can make complaints. 

ALEX SALMOND REFUSES TO ACTIVELY HELP MALE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS IN SCOTLAND

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)

THE BBC'S INCONSISTENT AND BIASED REPORTING OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

One of the main complaints made against the BBC is its liberal left-leaning metropolitan prejudice, a charge that often the BBC admits.

One of the problems is that it means individual journalists are able to treat some subjects blissfully ignorant of the need for balance, they can just get away with it so long as it fits left-leaning prejudices.

On the issue of domestic violence, there has been some successes including a phone-in on BBC Radio 5 in February 2008 (link) and an interview with a male victim on radio 4 in August 2008.

However, they still fall into the politically correct left-leaning trap of only portraying victims as female and perpetrators as men.

Last week, for example, they made much comment with interviews on the new figures on prosecutions issued by the CPS (link). However, none of the broadcasts had a spokesman commenting on male victims and this on-line coverage (link) from Andy McFarlane shows that men are ignored. They even trot out the usual picture of a man hitting a woman and ignore the fact that two in five victims are men.

The BBC needs to get its act together and treat all victims equally and stop this gender bias. What do we pay our licence fee for!

MANKIND INITIATIVE RESPONSE TO CROWN PROSECUTION CONSULTATION ON DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

The charity, The ManKind Initiative (link), has responded (link) to the Crown Prosecution Service's consultation (link) on domestic violence.

Essentially, the charity states that unless the CPS overhauls its policies, web-site and training then it is likely to be in breach of the Gender Equality Duty.

One of the scary things is that the CPS is meant to be gender-neutral and look at each case that it considers on its merits, however, it is difficult to have confidence in it when, for example, its domestic violence web-site pages (link) do not refer to male victims at all. It also only runs information campaigns for female victims.

In addition, the response also points out that the CPS cannot, by definition, be gender-neutral when its domestic violence policies fall under its Violence Against Women strategy. The charity believes that domestic violence has to be a stand alone policy area.

Look forward to the response from the CPS? 

SCOTTISH MSP AND SUNDAY HERALD HIGHLIGHT THE INSTITUTIONAL BIAS IN SCOTLAND AGAINST MALE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE VICTIMS

Figures in Scotland's Sunday Herald (link) show there has been a 110% increase in the number of male domestic violence victims in Scotland. Police were called to over 6,000 incidents where men were the victims.

And as the article states "And while the Scottish government has spent tens of millions of pounds in recent years to support female victims of domestic abuse and violence, it has not directed a single penny to support men who suffer at the hands of their partner."

Conservative MSP Mary Scanlon also raised the issue in the Scottish Parliament last week .

Thing are bad in England and Wales but clearly worse in Scotland. This clearly another example of institutional sexual discrimination perpetrated against men.

The Scottish Government knows there is a problem but they CHOOSE to do nothing about it.

SACREMENTO VICTORY FOR MALE DOMESTIC ABUSE VICTIMS

The previous post described how in the US the notion of political correctness had overtaken constitutional rights of equality.

The Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento ruled that California’s exclusion of men from domestic violence services violates men’s constitutional equal protection rights.

This was because a previous judge had ruled that "men are not entitled to equal protection regarding domestic violence because they statistically are not similarly situated with women."

The story is covered on Glenn Sacks' site here (link).

What is so bizarre is that the judges who are meant to revere the Constitution and Bill ofRights could come to such conclusions in the first place and that money had to spent to overturn this anti-male madness in the first place.

STIRRING UP HATRED AGAINST MEN - DALLAS TRANSPORT

Despite having a constitution that makes it clear that men and women are equal, the US spawns the most viciously anti-malepolitical correct propaganda in existence.

The Dallas Area Rapid Transport Service has been running an advertising campaign basically stating that every boy will grow up to perpetrate domestic abuse against women. It is vicious and has been condemned right across the US.

The campaign has been led by Glenn Sacks (link), a men's and fathers' issues newspaper columnist, radio commentator, and blogger. He is first rate.

There have been campaigns similar to this in the UK and with Domestic Violence Awareness Week on the horizon (25th November) all men need to be on their guard.

SIGN THE PETITION ON RAPE ANONYMITY FOR MEN

This site has been long concerned about the terrible double standards that can blight the lives of innocent men.

A new Government e-petition has been published (link) and everyone is urged to sign it.

The petition states :- We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Assign equal anonymous rights to both rape victim and accused until verdict is given.

It is by no coincidence that the past week or so has seen three cases come to the fore where the men were falsely accused of rape.

Gemma Capon (link) blighted the life of one man and got a sick joke of a sentence - Instead of a six-month maximum jail term, Capon was given a 12-week suspended sentence and ordered to pay £95 costs.

Erin Casson (link) got 12 months.

This anonymous girl (link) got a 12 month referral order

Signing the petition, may go some way to stop the names of the male victims being tarnished in the future.

AND SCOTLAND IGNORES MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE

Yesterday's post mentioned the ground breaking work in Leicestershire in giving full recognition to male victims of domestic abuse.

In Scotland though, it is a different story as this article in The Scotsman shows (link). In a country of some 5 million people, there is nowhere for a male victim to go and it is clear they are not interested either. A disgrace.

Let us hope that Mens Aid Scotland, who are quoted in the article, are successful in their campaign,