What about the men? White Ribbon, men and violence: a response to Dr Michael Flood by Men’s Health Australia

The White Ribbon Foundation is an organisation that works to prevent male violence towards women – a goal that is extremely worthy and worth supporting. The White Ribbon website states that “all forms of violence are unacceptable,” however in 2009 the organisation issued a document to it’s male Ambassadors which used erroneous ‘facts and statistics’ to downplay, diminish and report incorrectly about male victims of violence. These Ambassadors use federal government funding to take the White Ribbon message into regional, rural and remote communities. These significant errors could have led the Ambassadors, and through them the general public via federal funding, to be misled about the nature and dynamics of interpersonal violence in Australia.

Some of the dangerous myths about violence circulated in the document include claims that men are less likely than women to experience violence within family and other relationships; that we don’t yet know the impact of violence on men’s overall health; and that there is no evidence that male victims are less likely to report domestic violence than are female victims.

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A father’s day gift from Labor and the Greens: increased fatherlessness

Virtually every major social pathology has been linked to fatherlessness: violent crime, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, teen pregnancy, suicide – all correlate more strongly to fatherlessness than to any other single factor. The majority of prisoners, juvenile detention inmates, high school dropouts, pregnant teenagers, adolescent murderers and rapists all come from fatherless homes. The connection is so strong that controlling for fatherlessness erases the relationships between race and crime and between low income and crime. Many commentators, including the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, have laid the blame for the recent UK riots at least partially on the fact that many of the rioters were raised in homes without their fathers present.

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Domestic violence trends and issues in NSW (Inquiry)

This inquiry is a current Legislative Council inquiry conducted by the Social Issues Committee . The inquiry was established on 25 July 2011 to inquire into and report on domestic violence trends and issues in New South Wales. The terms of reference were referred by the Hon Pru Goward MP, Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister for Women. The Committee encourages public participation in the inquiry process. Submissions can be lodged by email, fax or post. The closing date for submissions is Friday 16 September 2011.

Kids to be denied their Fathers, because of ONE Man’s vote – Tony Windsor

Please read the following letter that was sent to Tony Windsor, Federal Member for New England, on the proposed 2011 child custody/family law changes currently before Parliament, designed to prevent most separated fathers from having contact with their children. The office of Tony Windsor has made it clear to me that they do not care to respond to the serious issues confronting separated fathers and children of separated families, despite being given ample opportunity to do so in response to this letter, and in previous discussions.

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AIC report ‘ignores key research on young people and domestic violence’

Attorney-General Robert McClelland and Minister for Justice Brendan O’Connor today released a new Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) report Children’s exposure to domestic violence in Australia.

In this paper, current knowledge about the extent of children’s exposure to domestic violence in Australia is described, along with the documented impacts that this exposure can have on children.

However, a leading men’s health organisation, Men’s Health Australia, says the report completely ignores the largest ever Australian survey of young people and domestic violence.

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