MENZ Issues: news and discussion about New Zealand men, fathers, family law, divorce, courts, protests, gender politics, and male health.

From: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=79708ae2-1dbf-4bdf-a9fe-83b65df121c1

Landmark sex exploitation study finds surprising number of female abusers

Gerry Bellett, Vancouver Sun
Published: Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Canada’s largest study into the sexual exploitation of street kids and runaways has shattered the myths and stereotypes about who the abusers are, the most surprising finding being that many are women seeking sex with young males.

“I must admit it wasn’t something we were expecting,” said Elizabeth Saewyc, associate professor of nursing at the University of B.C. and principal investigator for the study, conducted by Vancouver’s McCreary Centre Society.

“Some youth in each gender were exploited by women, with more than three out of four sexually exploited males reporting exchanging sex for money or goods with a female,” she said.

The results were drawn from interviews with 1,845 youth — some as young as 12 — in surveys taken across the province between 2000 and 2006.

The stereotypical model of the child being abused — a teenage girl being sexually abused by a man — is wrong, Saewyc said.

Sexual exploitation is defined as youth under the age of 19 trading sexual activities for resources such as money, drugs, gifts, food, services, shelter, transportation or anything similar.

This can include commercial sex work in brothels, escort services, pornography and Internet sex.

It also includes what’s called “survival sex,” where a child provides sex in exchange for a place to sleep, a meal or a ride.

The report found one in three children living on the street have been sexually abused, although many didn’t seem aware that they had been exploited, Saewyc said.

“It’s a shocking number. The law is clear any adult who has sex with children for any form of consideration is exploiting them and it’s illegal,” she said.

The study found 94 per cent of females reported they had been sexually exploited by men.

But the study found that young males were being preyed upon by sexual predators of both sexes, yet the social systems in place to deter and prevent sexual predation were only designed to help females and the criminal justice system wasn’t concerned with what was happening to young men.

“Women seeking young men and boys offer transportation or other things and some go to nightclubs and bars where they can pick up underage youth. And a certain percentage have been picked up by couples,” she said.

Saewyc said it was indicative of the prevailing myths about sexual abuse that the rehabilitation program for persons arrested by police for attempting to buy sexual favours on the street was called “John School.”

“I think it’s time we had a Jane School. There should be an equal opportunity school for women predators,” she said.

“Part of the challenge is that young males are not seen as being exploited because they are not coming to the attention of the police and the police aren’t out there picking up the perpetrators. The system is set up to handle the sexual exploitation of young women, not young men,” she said.

Community research associate Jayson Anderson said most of the programs to deal with sexual exploitation were designed by women for female victims.

“There’s really nothing out there for males, so we need programs for young boys,” he said.

The study showed that the following youth were most likely to suffer from sexual predation:

- Those who were lesbian, gay or bisexual.

- Aboriginals.

- Those with physical or mental health issues.

- Those who had been abused by family members.

- Youth that had been in government care.

Saewyc said the research shows important changes need to be made to the way society deals with street children.

“If you ask them what they need, they will tell you: safe shelter, access to education and job training, and medical and dental health services,” she said.

“But many youth who have drug problems can’t find safe shelter because the shelters won’t allow them in unless they are drug free, which seems to make some sense.

“But I think it’s time for the shelters to lower the threshold and let them in, because a 14-year-old shouldn’t be forced to submit to sexual abuse just to find shelter and survive,” said Saewyc.

Saewyc’s UBC group was involved in a research program in Minnesota, observing programs that reconnect young runaways and street kids with their families or keep them in school, thereby preventing them from becoming ingrained in life on the street.

gbellett@png.canwest.com

Date: 01/05/2008

Introduction

Men and boys, who make up 49% of the New Zealand population, fare better than women and girls in a number of human rights areas. These include employment participation and income, and representation in leadership and governance roles. In others, they are disproportionately represented in negative outcomes and statistics. These include significantly worse outcomes in terms of assault mortality, road casualties, suicide, qualifications gained at school, participation in tertiary education, and workplace injuries. Men dominate criminal justice and imprisonment statistics and are significantly affected by certain health issues and concerns.

Neither men’s nor women’s human rights feature as a separate theme in the Commission’s Statement of Intent. However, each year a number of relevant activities are carried out under various themes and within projects and programmes of work. This paper canvasses some main areas of concern and outlines how these issues are reflected in the Commission’s work programme.

Education

At school, boys dominate the suspension, exclusion and expulsion figures, and have lower retention and achievement rates than girls. They are two to four times more likely to be stood down, suspended, excluded or expelled than girls, and they account for 76 percent of exclusions and 81 percent of expulsions. They are more likely than girls to be granted an early leaving exemption and less likely to stay at school until the ages of 16 or 17. Students who are least likely to stay at school are Māori, male, and attend a decile 1 or 2 school. Slightly more boys than girls left school in 2006 with little or no formal attainment, with 12 and 10 percent respectively. Although the performance gap between girls and boys has narrowed since 2003, in 2006 girls still outperformed boys with 65 percent of girls achieving at least an NCEA Level 2 qualification compared to 56 percent of boys.
At tertiary level, women are slightly more likely than men to participate in tertiary education (14.6 percent compared with 12.8 percent of men in 2006). Men and women had the same rate of participation in sub-degree courses (10 percent), but women are slightly more likely than men to be enrolled in degree and post-graduate courses (six percent and four percent, respectively). Recent declines in tertiary participation have been greater for women, and the participation gap has narrowed in recent years.

Men continue to participate in the Modern Apprenticeship Scheme in far greater numbers than women, making up 91 percent of Modern Apprentices in 2006.

Men still have a slightly higher rate of educational attainment than women across the population as a whole. In 2006, 78 percent of men and 76 percent of women had attained an educational qualification at upper secondary level or above. Sex differences in educational attainment have narrowed over time. For younger age groups, women are more likely than men to have higher qualifications.

Human Rights Commission Activities: Children and Young People and the Right to Education
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Fathers aren’t needed say MPs: Commons decides IVF babies can do without a male role model
Evening Standard 21 May 08

Fathers were last night effectively declared an irrelevance in modern Britain. The requirement for fertility doctors to consider a child’s need for a male role model before giving women IVF treatment was scrapped by MPs. In a free vote, they swept away the rule despite impassioned pleas that the Government plan would “drive another nail into the coffin of the traditional family”. Labour rebels said it would send entirely the wrong signal to society as Britain faces a crisis in responsible parenting.

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, had warned it would remove the father from the heart of the family. He accused the Government of putting the interests of “consumers” who want to become parents before the welfare of children. But in the Commons, ministers won support for the legislation.
thisislondon

MPs reject need for father in IVF (UK)
BBC News 20 May 2008

MPs have voted to scrap laws forcing clinics to consider the need for a “father and mother” before allowing women to seek IVF treatment. Iain Duncan Smith led the cross-party bid, saying the absence of a father had a “detrimental effect” on a child. His plan was defeated by 292 votes to 217. Currently, IVF clinics have to consider the “welfare” of any child created, including the need for a father. But the government wants the focus instead on “supportive parenting”. MPs also opposed a further bid to ensure there is a “father or a male role model” before fertility treatment, by 290 votes to 222. The issue of the role of fathers in IVF comes in the second day of committee stage debate of the controversial Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, aimed at updating laws from 1990.

…On Monday, MPs voted down a cross-party attempt to ban hybrid human animal embryos. Roman Catholic cabinet ministers Ruth Kelly, Des Browne and Paul Murphy voted for a ban, while Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Tory leader David Cameron both opposed it. A bid to ban “saviour siblings” - babies selected to provide genetic material for seriously ill relatives -was also voted down.
bbcnews

‘Father’ to go from birth certificates (Aust)
Sydney Morning Herald May 18, 2008
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Pastors, Don’t Use Mother’s Day to Bash Dads
By Paul Coughlin, Crosswalk Contributor

A learning season is upon us, and it’s worth our time to heed its teaching.

This lesson is the difference between how we handle Mother’s Day compared with Father’s Day in church. If it’s like in years past, it won’t be pretty.

This Sunday we will extol the value and benefit of motherhood, which is great. But in some churches, this will be done by degrading Christian husbands, which is not great. “Our pastor makes us husbands get on our knees on Mother’s Day and beg for forgiveness. I don’t want to do it again this year,” one reader tells me. Another writes, “Our minister makes husbands write on paper all the things we’ve done wrong. Then we’re suppose to give it to our wives and pledge that we won’t do them any more.”

Most preachers will not be this heavy-handed. They will wait till Father’s Day (Sunday, June 18) to tell men how to be better fathers. Of course there’s nothing wrong with this message when taken as an isolated event. But when compared with Mother’s Day, we’ll discover that for some reason many ministers believe that fathers need correction on Father’s Day (and Mother’s Day) but women don’t. Why this double-standard?

Because much of the church sees men as a problem to be fixed when compared to women, not a gender to be appreciated. There’s prejudice and bigotry against a man’s nature in too many churches, Christian publishing, and on Christian radio (I was a program director of a Christian radio station - I
was part of the problem too), all of which have been beating men up for decades.

For example,
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What follows is a verbatim copy of a letter sent by Toran’s mother to Polly Gillespie at the ZM radio station. I feel it deserves as much attention as it can possibly receive, so please read on and consider going along if you are able to do so.

From: Maria Bradshaw
Sent: Wednesday, April 16, 2008 6:50 AM
To: Polly Gillespie
Subject: Toran Henry

Hi Polly

I’m Maria Bradshaw, the mother of the 17 year old boy Toran Henry who committed suicide nearly 4 weeks ago.

You may have seen in the news that I found my baby hanging in our garage after he had been let down by his school and told by mental health services that he should take prozac and could drink alcohol in the weekends. (more…)

As a mother and as a woman who has had the privilege to live in the great time of feminist rulership I thought that since feminism was about equality my concerns for our sons would have been accepted, which they have been; and work would be done to give our sons fair treatment, which unfortunately is a whole other matter.

Never did I realise that being for equal rights as a female was to be non equal rights for my sons. I had no idea that I had signed up for an opposite rulership that I had been opposed of.

I find in the women’s groups that there is an attitude that men must fight as hard as women if not harder to gain equality to women. I find that in the funding sector male is not even an option. You don’t have a box to ask for funding that says male. But you have one that says female. Or disability or gay/lesbian or elderly or even child which is up to the age of 12 for a male.

You see, a male child is not considered a child after the age of 12. He is then considered a man because he has testosterone. Testosterone is the enemy of feminism. Gosh, throw that by me again. hehehe. But seriously, I am not joking you.

I was shocked to learn that under the human Rights Commission, men do not have rights. So every male child over 12 does not have rights. You see, men never did have rights. Only responsibilities. Us females started rights. But our own female leaders do not want to give rights to men nor our sons.

Girls risk falling behind in the classroom’
21/04/2008

Girls risk falling behind in the classroom because government policies focus on the education standards of boys, a report claims. A “significant proportion” of girls are struggling to read but many are not getting enough help, it is claimed.

About a quarter define themselves as “non-readers” because they find books boring and fear being labelled a “geek”. They are also less likely to get encouragement from family members to pick up a novel at home.

A study by the National Literacy Trust, a reading charity, says many young girls were “in danger of being overlooked by current policy drives”.

At the moment, girls continue to out-perform boys at every age in the classroom. They pull ahead in tests taken at the age of seven and extend their lead at 11, 14 and 16. More young women now go to university and are more likely to get a good degree.

A series of reforms have been aimed at boys to address the imbalance. This includes additional cash to buy books for boys. But the National Literacy Trust warns that the achievements of girls may suffer as millions of pounds of government funding focuses on gender-specific initiatives.

link

This is what we are up against to give our sons a fair go in education. It is a mountain that few of us even realised. But it exists because women gained power and through women studies at University level and millions of dollars in funding, we grew a movement of hate for our own sons without even knowing it.

Worthwhile link to read

Daily Telegraph (Australia) April 17, 2008
Teachers are being urged to stop using terms such as husband and wife when addressing students or families under a major anti-homophobia push in schools. The terms boyfriend, girlfriend and spouse are also on the banned list - to be replaced by the generic “partner” - in changes sought by the gay lobby aimed at reducing discrimination in classrooms. (more…)

Family First NZ says that the announcement of the death of three-year-old Auckland toddler Dylan Rimoni being treated as a homicide means that the rate of child abuse deaths has continued at the same rate as before the flawed anti-smacking law.

“While good families are being investigated and thrown under suspicion because of the extremist anti-smacking law pushed by the Prime Minister and Sue Bradford, child abuse has continued at the same rate and the same old underlying issues of drug and alcohol abuse and family breakdown and dysfunction continue to be ignored,”� says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ. (more…)

In todays Dominion Post

The Health Ministry’s foot-dragging stance on prostate cancer screening for Kiwi men is criminal, patient advocates and doctors say.

A study by Wellington researchers of prostate screening and treatment, published in the December edition of the international journal Pathology, suggests the ministry’s outdated guidelines could be costing 200 men their lives each year.

Link :

What National is saying is that they are going to give our Police the same authority of a Judge to issue an interim injunction. This is an injunction that will automatically stop one party from associating with any children in that relationship.