PRESS RELEASE
October 30, 2006
Contact: David Usher, <>
UN Report Called Harmful to Families and Children
Rockville, MD – A coalition of 90 organizations around the world are calling on the United Nations to delay implementation of a recent report, saying the document is one-sided and irrevocably flawed. The groups claim the report’s recommendations will undermine families and sever children’s ties to their parents.
The UN report, Study on Violence Against Women, was released by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in early October. The UN study probes the issue of violence directed against women and recommends strategies to combat abuse.
But the groups note that around the world, men suffer a far greater burden of violence. Worse, the report ignores extensive research that shows women engage in domestic violence as often as men, making the report’s conclusions one-sided and biased against men.
Teri Stoddard, president of San Francisco-based Shared Parenting Works, observes, “I know far too many men who have been falsely accused of domestic violence and who haven’t been able to see their children for years. The idea that other countries and now the UN want to duplicate the American approach saddens me greatly.”
In Canada, Earl Silverman, president of Family of Men Support Society, asks, “how can the United Nations ignore half the problem of domestic abuse and expect justice to prevail and violence eliminated?”
Nora Bennis in Ireland notes, “Mothers At Home is concerned about the damage to children that reports like the UN Violence Report can cause. This Report will adversely affect the relationships between children and their fathers. This is a terrible injustice to the child.”
Organizations from 9 countries around the world have signed a resolution asking the UN to not implement the report until it fully assesses its impact on families and children. The organizations are based in the United States, Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Germany, Czech Republic, Australia, and New Zealand.
The full Resolution and list of co-signers can be seen at:
http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/UN-ViolenceReport-Resolution.pdf.
Nearly 200 studies around the world show that men and women are equally likely to engage in partner aggression:
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm. Psychologist John Archer reported in Psychological Bulletin that 38% of persons injured by domestic violence are male.
R.A.D.A.R. – Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting – is a non-profit, non-partisan organization of men and women working to improve the effectiveness of our nation's approach to solving domestic violence. http://mediaradar.org.
- 30 -
|