insideMAN

Men in Wales face ‘institutional sexism’ from family services, says leading fatherhood advocate

by 18 Comments

Paul Apreda is National Manager of  FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru. Here he explains why men in Wales need more help and support than they currently receive from the Welsh Government.

Over the last five years as National Manager for the charity in Wales I’ve seen literally hundreds of cases of parents who’ve turned to us for help. Most just want to see their kids.

We started – like our sister charity in England, Families Need Fathers – by providing, information and support to parents and grandparents who are excluded from the lives of their children. Rapidly we moved into providing advice –joining Advice UK – as well as advocacy, despite the fact that we have almost no resources. We even help parents and grandparents deal with Children’s Services in child protection and Public Law issues.

It’s not just dads we help -but most who need us are men. So what do we do – and why do we do it? Probably the best way to illustrate that is to share some of our stories.

Helping male victims of domestic violence 

Will is a 40 something dad in South Wales. He split up from his ‘ex last year and now she won’t let him see the kids. A family mediator sent him to us as she was worried about his mental state caused by not seeing the children he loves. His ex has ignored two letters from solicitors and an approach from the mediator. Mum’s brother and her cousins have physically assaulted him twice – fortunately on CCTV so they are awaiting trial for that. His GP has diagnosed him as a victim of domestic violence which has seriously impacted on his emotional well-being.

I undertook the CAADA–DASH risk indicator checklist with him and he scored 18 out of 24 – making him very high risk. I referred him to the local MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment Conference) only to find that they didn’t want to accept him as a victim because the Mum was already recognised as high risk on their system.

Then HE was arrested for harassment on the grounds that he sent text messages and phone calls to his ‘ex trying to see the children. The Police ‘tactfully’ arrested him away from South Wales when he was visiting his elderly mother in her care home. After keeping in the cells overnight they charged him with the offence. We’ve helped him get Legal Aid for contact and have arranged for a criminal solicitor to defend him against the harassment charge.

Dads excluded from kids’ lives 

Another dad – let’s call him Nathan – has just been ‘evicted’ from the hostel where he was living with his ex partner and young child. They haven’t given him a reason. Our volunteer advocate who has helped him try to find the reasons for his removal has had a complaint against her of harassment by the hostel manager. We’re helping Nathan mount an appeal against the eviction and to bring his case in the Family Court.

A third dad – we’ll call him Evan – had a letter from his daughter’s primary school telling him that they couldn’t communicate with him about his daughter as the mum said he didn’t have Parental Responsibility. Children’s Services put the children on the child protection register and tried to stop them from seeing Evan. We went with him to countless child protection meetings and eventually Children’s Services gave up – but not after the social worker told the three teenage girls that if they said they wanted to see their dad they could be taken into care!

From my perspective we are dealing with a culture of ‘institutionalised sexism’. Men are seen as a danger at worst and an irrelevance at best. I’ve known this was the case for years but have said to many people that if I used the phrase publically it would be an admission of defeat.

We can do better than this

The Fatherhood Institute has produced research in Wales showing that one Council’s children’s services department has improved its engagement with dads from 47% to 82% for those invited to take part in the Core Assessment. We have proposed to Welsh Government that ALL local authorities should be monitored on their father engagement with Children’s Services. They have declined.

We produced our own research about the engagement of parenting support services with men. This found that across 33 services and 169,000 service users the average participation level for men was between 3 and 11% of all parents. We proposed that services should be asked to report on the extent to which they engage with men. The Welsh Government refused – telling me in a face to face meeting that ‘it would be too difficult to do’.

But there is some light at the end of the tunnel! Following a successful challenge we made to a Welsh Government Equalities Impact Assessment I started a dialogue with the officials in their Equalities division. It appears that the Welsh Government have been labouring under the misapprehension that there are no bodies or organisations that represent men in Wales. I was abe to share the good news with them. We are here – and we’re not giving up.

—Photo: Flickr/[Duncan]

 

 

Welsh gender politics putting male and female victims at risk says men’s charity

by 8 Comments

The Welsh government is putting male and female victims of domestic violence at risk by failing to manage a gender political row that has broken out in the principality over proposed legislation designed to tackle violence in Wales, campaigners have claimed.

Legislators in Wales initially planned to introduce a Violence Against Women (Wales) Bill to tackle domestic violence and other forms of abuse against women and girls. Advocates for male victims claimed the legislation excluded men and boys and the Welsh government responded to these concerns by changing the title to the Gender Based Violence, Domestic Abuse and Sexual Violence (Wales) Bill.

The move has angered advocates on both sides of the gender political debate with Welsh Women’s Aid, which plays a key role in the Wales Violence Against Women Action Group, leading the call for the Bill to revert to its original name, the Violence Against Women (Wales) Bill.

According to Paul Apreda, National Manager of FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru (a charity with links to Families Need Fathers  in England), the name of the bill is somewhat irrelevant as The Welsh Government’s plans are clearly focussed towards a Violence against Women agenda, but run the risk of failure because of an ill-conceived attempt to make them appear gender inclusive.

Women’s groups downplay problems facing men

According to a press release issued by Apreda last week,  pressure to recognise male victims within existing women’s services has resulted in a zero-sum game of men’s groups calling for equality of approach which have been countered by women’s groups downplaying the extent of the problem facing men.

Apreda took the unexpected move of backing Women’s Aid’s request for the Bill to focus on women and girls and called for the Welsh government to develop an additional strategy for helping men and boys.

“Having read through the consultation responses received from a variety of Women’s support groups we understand their concerns about commissioners ‘coercing’ women-only DV services to open their doors to men,” said Apreda. “We share their worry about the dilution of the focus on protecting women and girls – and have come to the conclusion that the Welsh Government has completely miscalculated with this proposal.”

‘We believe that if the Welsh Government fails to put forward a credible, realistic, appropriately funded and timely response for male victims they will be in breach of UK legislation on Gender Equality,” said Apreda. “We stand ready to work with Welsh Government on this separate agenda and we hope we can count on the support of Welsh Women’s Aid to return the support we’re giving them now”.

Lies, damn lies and statistics

However, any hopes that Women’s Aid would support the development of a separate strategy to help male victims were deflated when it was revealed that the charity had made a new submission to the consultation on the bill that stated:

“WWA believes that the term ‘violence against women’ does not exclude men and boys as it refers to a crime type rather than a particular class of victim. As women and girls are the overwhelming majority of victims of these types of violence and abuse and 95% of perpetrators have been found to be men, the benefit of retaining the term within the Bill far outweighs any initial confusion that may be cause in regards to coverage.”

This statistic was angrily challenged by the campaigner Mike Buchanan of Justice for Men and Boys who said in an open letter that this “lie” was a misrepresentation of data contained in a 2008 report by the Crown Prosecution Service. According to Buchanan:

“That report does not state that ‘95% of perpetrators have been found to be men. It states that 95% of those charged (over April – September 2006) were men – a very different matter. There are a number of reasons for this high proportion. Over many years British Crime Surveys have consistently reported that male victims are far more reluctant than women to report their abusers to the police and others. The justice system is institutionally biased against men, and treats women far more leniently.”

We must keep trying to find a solution

While not everyone on the men’s side of this gender political debate agrees with Paul Apreda’s approach, he does appear to have the good will and support of many advocates for male victims. Tony Stott of Healing Men who has campaigned tirelessly for the legislation in Wales to be gender inclusive told insideMAN:

“All those involved in domestic abuse should be treated equally and as individuals whether they are instigators or victims or both.  Support, resources and justice should be made equally available to all regardless of gender.  That is not to say that men and women should be treated the same – clearly men and women are of equal importance but each may well have different needs.

“Unfortunately, “different” has all too often meant denying the importance of men’s experiences of domestic abuse and the approach taken by FNF Both Parents Matter Cymru will help bring the inequalities in importance that men face into sharp focus.  This is a hugely difficult struggle but I feel it is so important that we keep trying to face and resolve this discrimination and inequality.  I hope this approach works!”

The challenge for the Welsh Government is to navigate the turbulent world of gender politics and come up with an approach to tackling violence in Wales that doesn’t favour either side of the debate and is equally capable of helping all victims irrespective of  gender.

—Photo credit: Flickr/Peter Harrison 

If you liked this article and want to read more, follow us on Twitter @insideMANmag and Facebook

Also on insideMAN: