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

The DVA and and the essence of its implementation and the industry around it are the main reason for the deaths statistics cited in the article below. Most of the deaths are a consequence of the brutish and violent Family Court intervention. I call the review panel to poke its nose inside the Family Court dodgy practices and money hungry lawyers.

Numerous analysis and comments here in this website point the finger at the Family Court and the domestic violence industry.

Note that suicides among kiwi dads did not make it into the reports stats.

Article read from here

By KATIE CHAPMAN – The Dominion Post

Figures that show at least 41 New Zealanders died at the hands of family members in 2009 have been labelled “staggering” by some working to stop family violence.

The Family Violence Death Review Committee issued the figures in its annual report to Parliament. But it says the number could still get higher, as some deaths at the end of the year have not yet been included.

The figure is made up of 16 children, 13 women and 12 men – 10 deaths above the national average of 14 women, six men and 10 children killed each year.

A family violence death is defined as “the unnatural death of a person (adult or child) where the suspected perpetrator is a family or extended family member, caregiver, intimate partner, previous partner of the victim, or previous partner of the victim’s current partner”.

Committee chairwoman Wendy Davis said this was the first year the committee, which was established by the Health Ministry in 2008, had formally provided an official toll.

It was a shocking, yet unsurprising, result, she said.

“Nobody in New Zealand who works in the family violence area is surprised by these.”

The committee planned to analyse each death to highlight “crisis points” where intervention may have been possible, she said. The more information, the better equipped they would be to address the problem, she said.

“As a group we are very aware of the complexity of the problem we are helping to try and solve.”

Family violence researcher and campaigner Ruth Herbert, who is a member of the Round Table for Violence Against Women, labelled the figure “staggering”. “To actually hear it as an official number kind of makes me a bit weak at the knees.”

Now the information was public it had to be used to make a difference, she said.

“This country has to stand up, open its eyes, and realise what’s going on behind closed doors.

“We need to take a concerted approach to this. We need to base what we’re doing on evidence. It really needs a family violence programme. It’s all been rather ad hoc to date.”

The Family Violence Death Review Committee’s report says it aims to review each death and make recommendations by the end of 2010.

Have you ever wondered why we don’t have men’s rights and yet we have women’s rights, children’s rights, animal’s rights, even rights for plants? You might say it’s because of feminism and you would be right to a large degree. It’s not helpful for men when there exists a man-hate movement. But could there be a bit more to it?

If you’ve ever wondered, like I have, you’ll enjoy this interesting 10 minute presentation by manwomanmyth.com with guest speakers Angry Harry, a well known and well respected Men’s Rights Advocate and Activist alongside Erin Pizzy, author and international speaker of domestic violence who made the world’s first women’s refuge and Stephen Fitzgerald, director of Mankind Men’s charity.

Family First NZ says that violence in our community and towards people of authority such as the police will increase as long as we downplay the significance and benefits of strong marriages and committed fathers.

“The response of governments, even today, has been more money and more laws. Yet this fails to deal with the root causes of what is happening. Fatherlessness is a major contributor to increasing rates of juvenile violence,” says Bob McCoskrie, National Director of Family First NZ.

“Scientific research is unanimous on a number of conclusions regarding family structure – that strong marriages increases the likelihood that fathers have good relationships with their children and lowers the risk of alcohol and substance abuse, domestic violence and child abuse,”

“Conversely, parental divorce or non-marriage appears to increase children’s risk of delinquent and criminal behaviour, amongst other factors. One only needs to observe proceedings at the Youth Court to see the effect of fatherlessness.”

“According to The Heritage Foundation, an influential US research institute, an analysis of social science literature over 30 years shows that the rise in violent crime parallels the rise in families abandoned by fathers. A state-bystate analysis indicated that a 10% increase in the percentage of children living in single-parent homes lead typically to a 17% increase in juvenile crime. The research found that criminal behaviour has its roots in habitual deprivation of parental love and affection going back to early infancy.”
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French men who seem likely to be violent towards their wives and female partners will be tagged and monitored under new feminist law.

The proposed measure means men who have received court orders to stay away from their partners will wear an electronic bracelet and if they break the order, police are alerted.

Parliament is also considering outlawing psychological violence. This new creation of crime has many outside parliament worried on how this will work. Supporters of the law say psychological violence turns into physical violence while lawyers and professionals in the field are nervous saying it will be impossible to say at what point verbal abuse – for instance in an argument – suddenly becomes a criminal offence.

Critics argue the psychological violence clause is unlikely to make any practical improvement to the lives of women who suffer domestic violence.

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There may not be many organisations out there who do front level work supporting dads and pro-active stuff with health agencies and other groups, one is Father and Child.

In Auckland they are hiring a new coordinator, supporting other fathers groups, encouraging teen dads and helping raise awareness of how PND can effect dads, plus they run the Mauri Ora Father Circle in Onehunga on Wednesday nights.

Go to www.sovereignsunshine.co.nz and please place your vote for Father & Child.

This month Sovereign Sunshine will donate a share of $10,000 in proportion to the votes.
It should take less than a minute if you’ve done it before, or please pass this on… Thanks!

Tiger Woods is a victim of domestic violence, but he’s the one who makes a humiliating apology and begs to be able to continue providing his violent wife with a billion-dollar lifestyle. The media have largely ignored the domestic violence, and the public are only interested in how genuine and remorseful his apology seemed. Imagine if the tables had been turned; if Tiger Woods had attacked his wife with a weapon after finding out she had been sexually unfaithful, if he had injured her and chased after her as she ran for her life, if he had attacked and damaged her car as she desperately drove away so frightened and distressed (and unable to see through the windscreen he had broken?) that she soon crashed the car into something. Tiger would have been charged under the US Violence Against Women Act, even if his wife did not make a formal complaint. The propaganda-soaked public would have focused almost entirely on his violence and her victimization, and those who sought to draw attention to her infidelity as a provocation would soon be shouted down with “violence is not OK” slogans. No way would she be going on television to apologize! Rather than losing advertising contracts, new offers would be rolling in especially from purveyors of products for modern women who are “worth it” enough to put their own needs first. Women’s magazines and other media would outbid each other for interviews with this brave survivor of domestic violence. Judges would uphold her right to be unfaithful because it’s not against any law. Feminist laws have ensured that her unfaithfulness would be sanitized through no-fault divorce, full relationship property entitlements, the ongoing right to occupy the family home, and close to certainty of keeping primary custody of any children and therefore ongoing financial support from her ex-husband. Indeed, if he had so much as raised his voice in objecting to his wife’s infidelity he could expect to have his civil rights and his relationship with his children further damaged through a protection order. In some countries including New Zealand, any claim by him that he was provoked by her infidelity would be rejected legally, and instead would probably have him judged as “victim-blaming” and therefore deserving of increased punishment. In fact, nobody should ever dare try to mention her infidelity because a woman will be protected from cross-examination concerning her sexual history. Aside from all of this, his wife would blame her unfaithfulness on Tiger’s insufficiency of some kind and the public would nod their heads in recognition of her hardship. And the only thing she is likely to be criticized for widely would be saying that her wishes now were to save her marriage and to protect her children’s family unit.

Ah, but that’s the way stories go when wives are unfaithful and husbands react. When the genders are reversed, we get the Tiger Woods story.

I think it is appalling when men who study men’s issues under ‘gender studies’ at university condemn father’s and men’s groups who stand up for fathers and men to have equal rights. Women have come a long way changing society for females while men are still stuck in the past. Up until 2004, when a father took Germany to court in the European Court of Human Rights over discrimination, an unmarried man with a child was not accepted as a father. Still today this discrimination exists in the United Kingdom where an unmarried man can’t even sign for his child’s health, even though he is on the birth certificate and living with the mother. Decades ago unmarried women were sent to church facilities, had their child taken away and adopted out while they were sent back home childless.

Unfortunately, misandry (hatred of men) runs rampant in ‘gender studies’ (because it follows feminist ideology of man = perpetrator = bad and woman = victim = good). It takes a strong man to stand up to do what’s right instead of what’s easy and popular. And it just so happens there are men out there strong enough, who are insisting men have their own studies away from misandry (hatred of men) but that’s the American Men’s movement and for another article.

I am also appalled and think it is very sad and extremely bad that we don’t have New Zealand men representing New Zealand men but instead use (selectively chosen for their radical feminist outlook), men from overseas. Men as close as Australia with Michael Flood whose says his higher education made him want to be a feminist supporter. In other words, he is caught up in the man=bad, woman=good ideology. ……. to far away America with Lundy Bancroft who thinks every man who doesn’t follow feminism needs to be in prison for reprogramming that he insists takes as long as it takes (a life time for some).
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Victim Support is offering up to $250 to “victims/survivors” of “sexual violence”, towards the costs “of dealing with the immediate effects of the crime and investigation”. Examples of such possible costs are given but the list is open-ended. See the information below. My response:

1. Why has “sexual violence” been singled out as qualifying for a grant, when most other forms of criminal victimization will also incur costs? Could it be because it’s mainly women who are subjected to and/or allege sexual offences?

2. Why are the terms “victims/survivors” used when the grant is actually given to complainants? Is it assumed that every complaint must be true?

3. Won’t this grant provide a further incentive for people to make false allegations? (In addition to the incentives of ACC money and other possible secondary gain.) Why is Victim Support doing something that will actually increase crime (in the form of false complaints)?

4. “Sexual violence” complaints are often unaccompanied by any evidence. It will be too easy for someone who has spent their grocery money at the pokies to get a quick $250. The chances of being charged with making a false complaint are almost zero unless you are really stupid and admit you made it up.

5. Many sexual prosecutions are based on the issue of whether consent was given, and the exact definition of consent (which, even when clearly given at the time can retrospectively be seen as not having been given on various grounds – see s128A Crimes Act 1961). The law thereby provides an easy opportunity to claim sexual assault when you actually participated willingly, with virtually no chance of being charged with false complaint because all the physical facts will be true. Pity the poor bugger who had sex with you and now faces years in prison.

6. The grant is supposed to cover expenses incurred by complainants, but no proof will be required of any actual expenses. Applicants are only asked to keep their receipts “for reference until the grant has been paid”. Why make it so easy for applicants to be dishonest and to avoid any comeback later?

7. The grant remains yours even if you withdraw the complaint. What is the real agenda here?

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Sweden made it a crime for parents to smack their children. Now youth crime is climbing at an alarming rate. Their government’s response is that as of September parents will pay the financial consequences of their children’s crimes.

Read about it here: http://www.thelocal.se/24924/20100211/

Lately I have been receiving e-mails from mothers introducing themselves as being in a shared parenting arrangement. It is nice for me to hear this because after 2/3 generations not very good at sharing, we have a new generation mediating between each other well.

I am worried though, because I have been to a radical feminist meeting where they’ve said fathers who use the family court as a means to be in their children’s lives just want control of women, and I know here in New Zealand we do have a national group of radical feminists who lobby against shared parenting.

My worry has turned to fear by the actions of radical feminists and their radical socialist male supporters in Australia where father’s groups worked hard to change the law in 2006 so fathers could share their children and be a part of their lives as they grow up instead of just paying child tax to the mothers.

I like what Australian journalist Angela Shanahan of the The Australian newspaper had to say on how feminists are depriving children of their fathers. I’d enjoy reading YOUR opinion and perhaps having some discussion over this; Do you think children have a right to a relationship with both mum and dad?
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