April 20, 2010
An Emirati woman, who killed her husband in collusion with her lover seven years back, will be the first woman to be executed in the UAE with the apex court upholding her death sentence.
The woman, her lover, and two friends of the boyfriend -- all convicted for the killing -- are on death row for the murder of the woman's husband, reports said.
The four accused moved the appeals court twice to seek a suspension of the death sentence, a Gulf News report said.
The Abu Dhabi Supreme Court, however, has twice upheld capital punishment for the four.
The accused have all been held at Sharjah Central Jail since 2003 when the victim Fahd, an Emirati policeman in his twenties, was murdered, the report said.
The four accused now await a ruling from the higher authority which will authorize a firing squad to carry out the sentence.
The blood parents of the husband had refused to pardon the accused and sought Qisas (capital punishment) for them.
Under Islamic law a death sentence is suspended if the close relatives of the victim pardon the accused.
The victim had died of multiple stab wounds after the three men and the woman named Khawla stabbed him several times.
The three accused then ran away leaving the victim bleeding for more than an hour.
The woman then contacted police claiming that unidentified robbers had attacked him.
The woman later admitted to the crime, and said she wanted to get rid of her husband so that she would be free to marry her boyfriend. Following her confession, the police arrested the three accomplices.
The victim's mother, who passed away after the murder of her son, had asked her other children while she was on her death bed not to pardon the killers after her death.
Mr.Rebates
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Woods wife contemplating divorce?
March 29, 2010,
Speculations of divorce between disgraced golfer Tiger Woods and his wife Elin have renewed after reports that the Swedish model is not willing to give her husband a second chance.
Sunday Mirror, a UK tabloid, quoted sources as saying that Elin met lawyers to discuss divorce matter after Woods announced plans to return to golf in April.
She went to her lawyers and told them, "I am going through with it," a friend was quoted as saying.
The announcement to play in the Masters was contrary to what Woods said in his apology in February when the golfer spoke of spending time with his family.
"I do plan to return to golf one day. I just don't know when that day will be," he said, ruling out 2010. "When I do return I need to make my behaviour more respectful of the game."
Following Woods apology, reports suggested that the embattled couple were on their way to reconciliation. But now, the Mirror reported that Elin was furious that Woods had, once again, picked golf over the family at this critical time for their marriage.
"But now he is spending 16 hours a day on the practice ground, putting his game first, like the selfish, narcissistic husband he is. It's made Elin realise there won't be any real end to this and she needs to get out," the friend said.
Woods has not played for the past five months following the sex scandal that has received worldwide attention as several of the golfers mistresses came forward with lurid details about his infidelity.
The cat was out of the bag after his wife Elin found out about his affair with, Rachel Uchitel, a New York party planner, which led to an argument and accident on November 27 when Woods crashed his SUV outside his Florida mansion sustaining minor injuries.
Woods apologised for his behaviour in February, asked the media to back off from his private life, and revealed that he would use Buddhism to get his life back on track.
"I want to say to each one of you simply and directly I am deeply sorry for the irresponsible and selfish behaviour I engaged in," he had said.
"I am embarrassed I have put you in this position. For all that I have done I am so sorry."
Wood has completed six weeks of sex-rehab at two different centres in the US. This week, another porn star, Devon James claimed to have an affair with Woods.
If true, that brings the total of Woods' mistresses to 15, including three porn stars.
Speculations of divorce between disgraced golfer Tiger Woods and his wife Elin have renewed after reports that the Swedish model is not willing to give her husband a second chance.
Sunday Mirror, a UK tabloid, quoted sources as saying that Elin met lawyers to discuss divorce matter after Woods announced plans to return to golf in April.
She went to her lawyers and told them, "I am going through with it," a friend was quoted as saying.
The announcement to play in the Masters was contrary to what Woods said in his apology in February when the golfer spoke of spending time with his family.
"I do plan to return to golf one day. I just don't know when that day will be," he said, ruling out 2010. "When I do return I need to make my behaviour more respectful of the game."
Following Woods apology, reports suggested that the embattled couple were on their way to reconciliation. But now, the Mirror reported that Elin was furious that Woods had, once again, picked golf over the family at this critical time for their marriage.
"But now he is spending 16 hours a day on the practice ground, putting his game first, like the selfish, narcissistic husband he is. It's made Elin realise there won't be any real end to this and she needs to get out," the friend said.
Woods has not played for the past five months following the sex scandal that has received worldwide attention as several of the golfers mistresses came forward with lurid details about his infidelity.
The cat was out of the bag after his wife Elin found out about his affair with, Rachel Uchitel, a New York party planner, which led to an argument and accident on November 27 when Woods crashed his SUV outside his Florida mansion sustaining minor injuries.
Woods apologised for his behaviour in February, asked the media to back off from his private life, and revealed that he would use Buddhism to get his life back on track.
"I want to say to each one of you simply and directly I am deeply sorry for the irresponsible and selfish behaviour I engaged in," he had said.
"I am embarrassed I have put you in this position. For all that I have done I am so sorry."
Wood has completed six weeks of sex-rehab at two different centres in the US. This week, another porn star, Devon James claimed to have an affair with Woods.
If true, that brings the total of Woods' mistresses to 15, including three porn stars.
Enraged by wife, man kills brother-in-law
March 9, 2010
A man allegedly stabbed to death a nine-year-old boy, his brother-in-law, frustrated that his wife was not returning to him for the past four years in Orissa's Ganjam district, police said on Tuesday.
The man, Sapana Pradhan, who was aggrieved that his wife was staying with her father for the last four years, visited his brother-in-law Kanhu Sahu on Monday at Chadeyapada village under Polasara police station in Ganjam district, they said.
He later called Sahu to the market and allegedly stabbed him to death, they said.
Pradhan, a resident of Bagheal village, has been arrested.
A man allegedly stabbed to death a nine-year-old boy, his brother-in-law, frustrated that his wife was not returning to him for the past four years in Orissa's Ganjam district, police said on Tuesday.
The man, Sapana Pradhan, who was aggrieved that his wife was staying with her father for the last four years, visited his brother-in-law Kanhu Sahu on Monday at Chadeyapada village under Polasara police station in Ganjam district, they said.
He later called Sahu to the market and allegedly stabbed him to death, they said.
Pradhan, a resident of Bagheal village, has been arrested.
Out of job and in debt, ex-security officer kills wife, daughter
March 31, 2010
A debt-ridden former security officer with the Merchant Navy allegedly murdered his wife and minor daughter at their house in neighbouring Thane district on Tuesday.
Rajesh Kumar (42) told the police that he wanted to kill himself too. He hit his wife Sangeeta (41) and five-year-old daughter Tanishka on their head with a rod, injuring them seriously. He then went to his elder daughter Ayushi (16) and told her about the incident.
"Kumar took the injured to a nearby hospital after telling his neighbours in Kasarwadi area and friends about the incident. His wife died on way to the hospital, while his daughter died during treatment," Inspector Kasarwadi police station Pramod Khade said.
"He was frustrated as he had no job and had a home loan to pay. Rajesh claimed he would have killed himself after murdering his wife and daughter. But, later he thought whatever he had done was wrong and tried to save them by taking them to hospital," he said.
Rajesh, who was jobless after his contract as security officer ended, was arrested from the hospital and charged with double murder.
A debt-ridden former security officer with the Merchant Navy allegedly murdered his wife and minor daughter at their house in neighbouring Thane district on Tuesday.
Rajesh Kumar (42) told the police that he wanted to kill himself too. He hit his wife Sangeeta (41) and five-year-old daughter Tanishka on their head with a rod, injuring them seriously. He then went to his elder daughter Ayushi (16) and told her about the incident.
"Kumar took the injured to a nearby hospital after telling his neighbours in Kasarwadi area and friends about the incident. His wife died on way to the hospital, while his daughter died during treatment," Inspector Kasarwadi police station Pramod Khade said.
"He was frustrated as he had no job and had a home loan to pay. Rajesh claimed he would have killed himself after murdering his wife and daughter. But, later he thought whatever he had done was wrong and tried to save them by taking them to hospital," he said.
Rajesh, who was jobless after his contract as security officer ended, was arrested from the hospital and charged with double murder.
Abused for 6 years, Delhi woman says husband must pay for his crimes
June 18, 2010
Nearly three months after she filed an FIR against her husband for forcing her to have group sex with his friends, a woman in Delhi is seeking justice for the six years of pain and humiliation.
After an FIR was filed on April 4, the Delhi-based businessman Kuldeepak Arora was arrested from the Delhi airport.
"I contacted Kuldeepak on his email ID after seeing the matrimonial ad in newspaper on July 6, 2003. We started chatting and met first in London and then in Dubai. Finally, our families met in Hong Kong to decide about our marriage. We had a lavish wedding at Kamrej in Surat and then a reception in Delhi," she told MiD DAY over the phone from Surat.
"Soon after marriage, my husband and in-laws started harassing me for dowry. Due to my husband's business in Mumbai and Hong Kong we used to stay in Delhi and Mumbai alternatively. They started beating me up and even tried to drown me," she said.
She then wrote to her sister who asked her to be patient. Meanwhile, frustrated with his dowry demands not being met, Arora unleashed hell on her.
"I was forced to have unnatural sex but he did not stop at that. He forced me to have physical relations with his brothers Kulbhushan and Dharmender as also with his business partner NP Sehgal," she alleged.
The woman returned to her family in Surat and filed a police complaint against Arora after six years of marriage.
The accused Kuldeepak Arora is an exporter with business interests in Mumbai and Hong Kong. When the Surat police nabbed him at the IGI airport on April 5, Arora was leaving for Nepal. He owns a company called Bombay Brothers Audio Visual Company Pvt Ltd. and imported cellphones to India.
Arora, who owns a plush bungalow in the south Delhi's East of Kailash, used to stay most of the time at his Goregaon apartment in Mumbai.
"Recently, I got to know that my husband was married before he tied the knot with me. He had not divorced his first wife whom he married in 1997. Their divorce was not settled till 2006 and a case was on in Delhi's Tees Hazari court," she said.
Investigation officer Surendra Singh Wala told MiD DAY from Surat over the phone that the FIR in the case was lodged on April 4, following which a look-out notice was issued against Kuldeepak Arora. "The FIR names the accused along with his brother, brother-in-law and his business partner. Apart from allegations of forced group sex, there are charges of torture and threats to life."
The FIR has been lodged under sections 498A (subjecting a married woman to cruelty), 307 (attempt to murder), 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural offences), 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and 114 (abetment of any offence) and sections 3 and 7 of the dowry Act.
Arora was produced before a Surat court last week that remanded him to nine days' police custody. The police remand expires on Friday. Arora had also moved a bail application, which will be heard the same day.
No further arrests have been made as the police are still searching for his family members including his two brothers, their wives and a business partner, who have been named in the complaint.
Wala said the police have evidence to prove that the woman was being forced to have group sex and even had a miscarriage due to the ordeal.
Nearly three months after she filed an FIR against her husband for forcing her to have group sex with his friends, a woman in Delhi is seeking justice for the six years of pain and humiliation.
After an FIR was filed on April 4, the Delhi-based businessman Kuldeepak Arora was arrested from the Delhi airport.
"I contacted Kuldeepak on his email ID after seeing the matrimonial ad in newspaper on July 6, 2003. We started chatting and met first in London and then in Dubai. Finally, our families met in Hong Kong to decide about our marriage. We had a lavish wedding at Kamrej in Surat and then a reception in Delhi," she told MiD DAY over the phone from Surat.
"Soon after marriage, my husband and in-laws started harassing me for dowry. Due to my husband's business in Mumbai and Hong Kong we used to stay in Delhi and Mumbai alternatively. They started beating me up and even tried to drown me," she said.
She then wrote to her sister who asked her to be patient. Meanwhile, frustrated with his dowry demands not being met, Arora unleashed hell on her.
"I was forced to have unnatural sex but he did not stop at that. He forced me to have physical relations with his brothers Kulbhushan and Dharmender as also with his business partner NP Sehgal," she alleged.
The woman returned to her family in Surat and filed a police complaint against Arora after six years of marriage.
The accused Kuldeepak Arora is an exporter with business interests in Mumbai and Hong Kong. When the Surat police nabbed him at the IGI airport on April 5, Arora was leaving for Nepal. He owns a company called Bombay Brothers Audio Visual Company Pvt Ltd. and imported cellphones to India.
Arora, who owns a plush bungalow in the south Delhi's East of Kailash, used to stay most of the time at his Goregaon apartment in Mumbai.
"Recently, I got to know that my husband was married before he tied the knot with me. He had not divorced his first wife whom he married in 1997. Their divorce was not settled till 2006 and a case was on in Delhi's Tees Hazari court," she said.
Investigation officer Surendra Singh Wala told MiD DAY from Surat over the phone that the FIR in the case was lodged on April 4, following which a look-out notice was issued against Kuldeepak Arora. "The FIR names the accused along with his brother, brother-in-law and his business partner. Apart from allegations of forced group sex, there are charges of torture and threats to life."
The FIR has been lodged under sections 498A (subjecting a married woman to cruelty), 307 (attempt to murder), 376 (rape), 377 (unnatural offences), 506(2) (criminal intimidation) and 114 (abetment of any offence) and sections 3 and 7 of the dowry Act.
Arora was produced before a Surat court last week that remanded him to nine days' police custody. The police remand expires on Friday. Arora had also moved a bail application, which will be heard the same day.
No further arrests have been made as the police are still searching for his family members including his two brothers, their wives and a business partner, who have been named in the complaint.
Wala said the police have evidence to prove that the woman was being forced to have group sex and even had a miscarriage due to the ordeal.
Woman, paramour held for attempt on husband's life
Saturday May 15, 2010
A woman and her paramour were arrested in New Delhi for allegedly attempting to murder her husband during a "stage-managed" snatching bid, police said on Friday.
Reena (24) and Satish Kumar Chauhan (21) were apprehended for their alleged involvement in the incident in which two motorcycle-borne men stabbed Reena's husband Om Prakash when he resisted their attempt to snatch her gold chain in Hari Nagar on May seven.
"The number of stab injuries sustained by the victim indicated that the robbery alone may not be the motive for this crime. We also noticed contradictions in the statement of Reena," a senior police official said.
"Though the husband had sustained grievous injuries, his wife did not have any injury or abrasion on her neck. We had our suspicions," he said.
Police spoke to other family members and Om Prakash's brother told them that he was not in good terms with his wife.
He further revealed that his brother had heard Reena talking to some unknown person in odd hours.
"It came to light during investigations that Reena used to talk to Chauhan for a long duration," the official said.
Chauhan was living in the neighbourhood of Om Prakash for the past three years. Om Prakash's nephew Deepak introduced Chauhan to his uncle and he started visiting his house frequently.
"He developed an intimacy with Reena and their relationship developed to the extent that they decided to live together forever. They formally accepted each other as a husband and wife after a marriage in a temple in November 2009," the official said.
Prakash got suspicious of his wife as she used to talk a lot on her mobile to some unknown person. When he raised objections and put restrictions on his wife's activities, she complained about this to Chauhan.
"Then they hatched a conspiracy to eliminate Prakash," the official said adding, they approached two criminals to carry out a "stage-managed" snatching bid and murder Prakash.
A woman and her paramour were arrested in New Delhi for allegedly attempting to murder her husband during a "stage-managed" snatching bid, police said on Friday.
Reena (24) and Satish Kumar Chauhan (21) were apprehended for their alleged involvement in the incident in which two motorcycle-borne men stabbed Reena's husband Om Prakash when he resisted their attempt to snatch her gold chain in Hari Nagar on May seven.
"The number of stab injuries sustained by the victim indicated that the robbery alone may not be the motive for this crime. We also noticed contradictions in the statement of Reena," a senior police official said.
"Though the husband had sustained grievous injuries, his wife did not have any injury or abrasion on her neck. We had our suspicions," he said.
Police spoke to other family members and Om Prakash's brother told them that he was not in good terms with his wife.
He further revealed that his brother had heard Reena talking to some unknown person in odd hours.
"It came to light during investigations that Reena used to talk to Chauhan for a long duration," the official said.
Chauhan was living in the neighbourhood of Om Prakash for the past three years. Om Prakash's nephew Deepak introduced Chauhan to his uncle and he started visiting his house frequently.
"He developed an intimacy with Reena and their relationship developed to the extent that they decided to live together forever. They formally accepted each other as a husband and wife after a marriage in a temple in November 2009," the official said.
Prakash got suspicious of his wife as she used to talk a lot on her mobile to some unknown person. When he raised objections and put restrictions on his wife's activities, she complained about this to Chauhan.
"Then they hatched a conspiracy to eliminate Prakash," the official said adding, they approached two criminals to carry out a "stage-managed" snatching bid and murder Prakash.
Life sentence for strangling her husband
February 26, 2010
Nearly 14 years after a man was strangled to death by his wife, the Delhi High Court on Friday awarded her life imprisonment while the alleged contract killer was let off for want of conclusive proof.
Kiran Mehlawat and Surinder Singh were sentenced to life term by the trial court in 2001 for murdering Pratap Singh, a retired army Major, in Sainik Vihar locality.
Both the convicts had approached High Court challenging the trial court's order on the ground that a material witness was not examined by the prosecution and that the motive for the murder was not established.
However, a bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Suresh Kait rejected the contention saying neither non-examination of the deceased's mother, alleged to be material witness, nor the absence of motive was fatal to the prosecution's case.
"Kiran is convicted of the offences of committing the murder of the deceased. We maintain the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to accused Kiran by the trial court," the bench said while acquitting Surinder for lack of evidence.
The bench also said the conduct of the convict in misleading the probe agency by stating that robbery had been committed at her house was suggestive of her guilty mind.
"The fact of the matter is that accused Kiran tried to mislead the police by falsely stating that a robbery had been committed in the house in question on the day of the murder of the deceased.
Nearly 14 years after a man was strangled to death by his wife, the Delhi High Court on Friday awarded her life imprisonment while the alleged contract killer was let off for want of conclusive proof.
Kiran Mehlawat and Surinder Singh were sentenced to life term by the trial court in 2001 for murdering Pratap Singh, a retired army Major, in Sainik Vihar locality.
Both the convicts had approached High Court challenging the trial court's order on the ground that a material witness was not examined by the prosecution and that the motive for the murder was not established.
However, a bench comprising Justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Suresh Kait rejected the contention saying neither non-examination of the deceased's mother, alleged to be material witness, nor the absence of motive was fatal to the prosecution's case.
"Kiran is convicted of the offences of committing the murder of the deceased. We maintain the sentence of life imprisonment awarded to accused Kiran by the trial court," the bench said while acquitting Surinder for lack of evidence.
The bench also said the conduct of the convict in misleading the probe agency by stating that robbery had been committed at her house was suggestive of her guilty mind.
"The fact of the matter is that accused Kiran tried to mislead the police by falsely stating that a robbery had been committed in the house in question on the day of the murder of the deceased.
Husband files petition seeking wife's return
Wednesday January 6, 2010
Accusing his in-laws of illegal confinement of his wife, a man in an inter-religion wedlock, has filed a habeas corpus petition in the Bombay High Court seeking its intervention to secure her return to their home in suburban Chandivali.
The 26-year-old petitioner from Bihar, Ravi Tiwari, has alleged he has been asked by his in-laws to convert to Islam and pay Rs five lakh to them in return for his wife.
Tiwari said he was ready to convert to Islam but he did not have the money to pay to his wife's family.
The petitioner said he fell in love with Sabeena Langoo, 22, in Pune where he had gone to study MBA. Sabeena's father had a business in the neighbourhood, he said.
The duo fell in love and wanted to get married but Tiwari faced opposition from Sabeena's family. Her parents took her to a place in Kashmir and wanted to get her married to someone else. But Sabeena escaped and returned to Mumbai where she tied the knot with Tiwari in October last year.
As Sabeena's parents pressurised her to return to her family home, she filed a petition two months back in the High Court asking for protection from her family. The court granted her relief while directing the couple to report to Chandivali police station regularly to inform about her whereabouts.
Accusing his in-laws of illegal confinement of his wife, a man in an inter-religion wedlock, has filed a habeas corpus petition in the Bombay High Court seeking its intervention to secure her return to their home in suburban Chandivali.
The 26-year-old petitioner from Bihar, Ravi Tiwari, has alleged he has been asked by his in-laws to convert to Islam and pay Rs five lakh to them in return for his wife.
Tiwari said he was ready to convert to Islam but he did not have the money to pay to his wife's family.
The petitioner said he fell in love with Sabeena Langoo, 22, in Pune where he had gone to study MBA. Sabeena's father had a business in the neighbourhood, he said.
The duo fell in love and wanted to get married but Tiwari faced opposition from Sabeena's family. Her parents took her to a place in Kashmir and wanted to get her married to someone else. But Sabeena escaped and returned to Mumbai where she tied the knot with Tiwari in October last year.
As Sabeena's parents pressurised her to return to her family home, she filed a petition two months back in the High Court asking for protection from her family. The court granted her relief while directing the couple to report to Chandivali police station regularly to inform about her whereabouts.
Wife kills husband by pouring boiling oil on him
I guess this women couldnt just leave her abusive relationship could she? Yet she managed to boil a pot full of Oil, and take it to her husband and pour it all over him. I would call this PREMEDITATED Murder, not self defence. Had the man done the same think in similar circumstances he would have the book thrown at him and booked for 1 degree Murder. Why the difference?
Chennai: Dejected over her husband's extra marital relationship, a woman killed him by pouring boiling oil on him at Puzhal Kavangarai on the city outskirts late last night.
Police said Harinath (32), running an optical shop, was allegedly having an illicit relationship with a woman in the same locality.
This resulted in frequent quarrels between him and his wife Devi Bala. When Harinath returned home late last night, his wife picked up a quarrel with him.
However, after Harinath went to bed late at night, his wife, in a fit of rage, boiled two litres of cooking oil and poured it on her husband.
He sustained severe burns all over his body. As he screamed for help, neighbours rushed him to a nearby Hospital, where he succumbed to the burns.
Chennai: Dejected over her husband's extra marital relationship, a woman killed him by pouring boiling oil on him at Puzhal Kavangarai on the city outskirts late last night.
Police said Harinath (32), running an optical shop, was allegedly having an illicit relationship with a woman in the same locality.
This resulted in frequent quarrels between him and his wife Devi Bala. When Harinath returned home late last night, his wife picked up a quarrel with him.
However, after Harinath went to bed late at night, his wife, in a fit of rage, boiled two litres of cooking oil and poured it on her husband.
He sustained severe burns all over his body. As he screamed for help, neighbours rushed him to a nearby Hospital, where he succumbed to the burns.
Woman kills alcoholic husband
Jun 10, 2010
NAVI MUMBAI: Fed up of physical abuse at the hands of her alcoholic husband, a 36-year-old fisherwoman recently killed him with the help of her mother, brother and two others in Uran.
The woman, Kalpana Yadav, and her mother Kanta Koli (56) have been arrested for the murder of Ravi Yadav (45) and remanded in police custody till June 15. Kalpana’s brother Mayur Koli and two others are wanted in the case.
According to the police, Ravi, a fisherman, used to regularly beat Kalpana and harass his mother-in-law.
In 2005, a police complaint was registered against Ravi for attacking his mother-in-law with a sharp object.
Deputy commissioner of police (Zone 2) Ankush Shinde said, “Ravi’s wife and in-laws could not tolerate his obnoxious behaviour. A fight ensued which unfortunately led to his killing.”
Mayur and two of his friends dumped Ravi’s body on Gawhan highway, near JNPT. The body was recovered from the spot on Tuesday.
NAVI MUMBAI: Fed up of physical abuse at the hands of her alcoholic husband, a 36-year-old fisherwoman recently killed him with the help of her mother, brother and two others in Uran.
The woman, Kalpana Yadav, and her mother Kanta Koli (56) have been arrested for the murder of Ravi Yadav (45) and remanded in police custody till June 15. Kalpana’s brother Mayur Koli and two others are wanted in the case.
According to the police, Ravi, a fisherman, used to regularly beat Kalpana and harass his mother-in-law.
In 2005, a police complaint was registered against Ravi for attacking his mother-in-law with a sharp object.
Deputy commissioner of police (Zone 2) Ankush Shinde said, “Ravi’s wife and in-laws could not tolerate his obnoxious behaviour. A fight ensued which unfortunately led to his killing.”
Mayur and two of his friends dumped Ravi’s body on Gawhan highway, near JNPT. The body was recovered from the spot on Tuesday.
Unable to bear torture, woman kills husband
03 June 2010
BATHINDA: Unable to bear alleged physical torture at his hands. a woman killed her husband by repeatedly attacking him with an iron pipe in face and head while he was sleeping.
Acting swiftly, the Civil Lines police arrested the woman from the spot — a construction site — where the man was posted as a watchman. During interrogation, she admitted to the crime and the police booked her under Section 302 of the IPC.
She alleged that Darshan singh had been physically harassing her since their marriage and even forced her into prostitution.
SHO Civil Lines Buta Singh said, “We cracked the case after collecting evidence from the spot and analysing an unusual behaviour of the accused.”
Police have recorded the statement of her seven year old son.
BATHINDA: Unable to bear alleged physical torture at his hands. a woman killed her husband by repeatedly attacking him with an iron pipe in face and head while he was sleeping.
Acting swiftly, the Civil Lines police arrested the woman from the spot — a construction site — where the man was posted as a watchman. During interrogation, she admitted to the crime and the police booked her under Section 302 of the IPC.
She alleged that Darshan singh had been physically harassing her since their marriage and even forced her into prostitution.
SHO Civil Lines Buta Singh said, “We cracked the case after collecting evidence from the spot and analysing an unusual behaviour of the accused.”
Police have recorded the statement of her seven year old son.
Cop kills woman, her daughter, self
2010-06-07
Punjab: A police constable allegedly shot dead a woman and her daughter before committing suicide in a village here in Punjab early on Monday, police said.
The women were identified as Prem Lata, a 40-year-old with whom constable Harvinder Singh, two years younger to her, allegedly had an illicit relationship for many months.
Police gave the name of the younger woman as Ram Lalli, 24. Deputy Superintendent of Police Sant Singh Dhariwal said that Harvinder Singh went to Prem Lata's house and first locked her husband in a room.
After an argument, he fired at Prem Lata and her daughter from his self loading rifle before shooting himself. He fired 15 times from his rifle in all, the officer said.
Prem Lata's husband Ram Asra insisted that he had no knowledge that his wife was friendly with the killer.
Punjab: A police constable allegedly shot dead a woman and her daughter before committing suicide in a village here in Punjab early on Monday, police said.
The women were identified as Prem Lata, a 40-year-old with whom constable Harvinder Singh, two years younger to her, allegedly had an illicit relationship for many months.
Police gave the name of the younger woman as Ram Lalli, 24. Deputy Superintendent of Police Sant Singh Dhariwal said that Harvinder Singh went to Prem Lata's house and first locked her husband in a room.
After an argument, he fired at Prem Lata and her daughter from his self loading rifle before shooting himself. He fired 15 times from his rifle in all, the officer said.
Prem Lata's husband Ram Asra insisted that he had no knowledge that his wife was friendly with the killer.
Domestic abuse victim kills self, kids
June 10, 2010
A thirty-two-year-old woman allegedly set herself and her two young children on fire at her house near the Lahouri Gate in the inner city on Wednesday. Police have registered a case and are trying to ascertain the reason behind the extreme step taken by the victim, whose husband has been arrested.
According to police, the victims have been identified as Jasbir Kaur, her son Noor Preet Singh (8) and daughter Simarpreet Kaur (4). Reportedly, Jasbir poured kerosene oil on herself and her kids and they had suffered nearly 90 per cent burn injuries by the time neighbours pulled them out of their house situated on the first floor. Jasbir got married to Gurmeet Singh in 2001 and apparently, it was not a happy marriage.
Patiala SP Narinder Kaushal visited the spot and said prima facie it appeared to be a suicide case. “We have registered a case under Section 306 of the IPC and more sections will be added after detailed investigation,” he said.
Gurmeet Singh works at a shop and allegedly, he abused his wife often, including today. “They did not have a good relationship, as the husband used to pressurise his wife for dowry and even beat her up sometimes. The couple had approached the police a few months ago and reached a compromise,” said SP Kaushal.
Speaking to Newsline, Gurmeet’s mother Ravel Kaur said, “I and Jasbir were not on talking terms and our kitchens were also separate. Today, after having lunch, Gurmeet left the house and Jasbir and the kids went to her room on the first floor.” Eye witnesses said they heard shrieks and saw smoke coming out of the house. One of the neighbours, Parmod, used a heavy wooden pillar to break open the door. “This, however, took five minutes and victims were badly burnt by that time,” he said. Meanwhile, the bodies have been sent for postmortem and parents of Jasbir, residents of Nabha, have been called to Patiala.
A thirty-two-year-old woman allegedly set herself and her two young children on fire at her house near the Lahouri Gate in the inner city on Wednesday. Police have registered a case and are trying to ascertain the reason behind the extreme step taken by the victim, whose husband has been arrested.
According to police, the victims have been identified as Jasbir Kaur, her son Noor Preet Singh (8) and daughter Simarpreet Kaur (4). Reportedly, Jasbir poured kerosene oil on herself and her kids and they had suffered nearly 90 per cent burn injuries by the time neighbours pulled them out of their house situated on the first floor. Jasbir got married to Gurmeet Singh in 2001 and apparently, it was not a happy marriage.
Patiala SP Narinder Kaushal visited the spot and said prima facie it appeared to be a suicide case. “We have registered a case under Section 306 of the IPC and more sections will be added after detailed investigation,” he said.
Gurmeet Singh works at a shop and allegedly, he abused his wife often, including today. “They did not have a good relationship, as the husband used to pressurise his wife for dowry and even beat her up sometimes. The couple had approached the police a few months ago and reached a compromise,” said SP Kaushal.
Speaking to Newsline, Gurmeet’s mother Ravel Kaur said, “I and Jasbir were not on talking terms and our kitchens were also separate. Today, after having lunch, Gurmeet left the house and Jasbir and the kids went to her room on the first floor.” Eye witnesses said they heard shrieks and saw smoke coming out of the house. One of the neighbours, Parmod, used a heavy wooden pillar to break open the door. “This, however, took five minutes and victims were badly burnt by that time,” he said. Meanwhile, the bodies have been sent for postmortem and parents of Jasbir, residents of Nabha, have been called to Patiala.
Domestic Violence- Women are Half the Problem
Domestic Violence- Women are Half the Problem
A Message to Women
Domestic Violence - The Battered Woman - part 1
Domestic Violence - The Battered Woman - part 2
A Message to Women
Domestic Violence - The Battered Woman - part 1
Domestic Violence - The Battered Woman - part 2
Harassed hubby opts for jail
April 27th, 2010
April 26: A 42-year-old man deliberately got himself arrested on Sunday to escape his wife’s torture. The man, Selvam, got drunk and threw stones at an MTC bus in Vyasarpadi and waited for the police to arrest him.
He told the police that he was unable to bear the torture of his wife and preferred jail to home. On Monday, he pleaded with the police not to send him back home and made sure that he was remanded for 15 days.
Selvam, a casual labourer of Kakkanji Nagar, in Vyasarpadi, and his wife Govindammal (39), who have two children, argued often. Though initially Govindammal used to go away to her maternal home after the quarrel, she then got into the habit of beating him up. Sometimes she bashed him up for no reason at all, explained the police.
After one such ‘bashing up’ early on Sunday morning, Selvam had a few rounds before going to the Sharma Nagar bus stop and threw two huge stones at an MTC bus going into the depot. The enraged driver drove to the local police station and lodged a complaint.
After he was arrested, Selvam broke into tears during questioning. He told the police about the harassment he was going through and at one point threatened to kill himself if he was not arrested. “So, we were left with no choice,” police said.
April 26: A 42-year-old man deliberately got himself arrested on Sunday to escape his wife’s torture. The man, Selvam, got drunk and threw stones at an MTC bus in Vyasarpadi and waited for the police to arrest him.
He told the police that he was unable to bear the torture of his wife and preferred jail to home. On Monday, he pleaded with the police not to send him back home and made sure that he was remanded for 15 days.
Selvam, a casual labourer of Kakkanji Nagar, in Vyasarpadi, and his wife Govindammal (39), who have two children, argued often. Though initially Govindammal used to go away to her maternal home after the quarrel, she then got into the habit of beating him up. Sometimes she bashed him up for no reason at all, explained the police.
After one such ‘bashing up’ early on Sunday morning, Selvam had a few rounds before going to the Sharma Nagar bus stop and threw two huge stones at an MTC bus going into the depot. The enraged driver drove to the local police station and lodged a complaint.
After he was arrested, Selvam broke into tears during questioning. He told the police about the harassment he was going through and at one point threatened to kill himself if he was not arrested. “So, we were left with no choice,” police said.
Why do techies embrace death?
Do they feel suicide is the only way out to escape the stress at work place?
Sudhakaran
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
BANGALORE, INDIA: Two suicides in a city within a span of 24 hours may not be a big news. But the news assumes significance because both the deceased are techies who earn a decent living, and an apparently happy life.
The latest case is the suicide of Abhaya Singh, a 25-year-old software engineer working with Satyam Software, who ended his life on Tuesday. The son of the SP of Jharkhand, Singh was staying as paying guest at Parappana Agrahara in the city.
It was on Monday that another techie named Vijay Babu, who was working with HP, ended his life by hanging from the ceiling fan at his residence in Madiwala.
This indicates towards the darker side of the hi-flying life the techies are supposed to lead. And this cannot be treated as isolated incidents.
Hardly two weeks prior to this incident, a girl working with Nokia in the city had ended her life.
According to the suicide note of 26-year-old M J Soni, it was the harassment in the work place that forced her to take her life. In that note she had pointed fingers towards two of her senior colleagues, who allegedly put her to untold mental harassment.
National Crime Records Bureau says that, on an average 35 in every 100,000 people in Bangalore commit suicide. Experts say in most of the cases in is the stress that led the people to death.
In most of the hospitals, one could see the brains of the Silicon Valley seeking treatment for stress-related ailments. And there are many who embrace drugs and alcohol to cope with the pressure. And the tragedy is that majority of those who suffer from stress are from the IT and BPO industry.
There are many reasons contributing to their problem – long working hours, competition and the ambition to excel so that they would get a foreign trip or some extra perks. And in the prevailing scenario the feeling of insecurity adds to the worries.
Added to this is the marital discord, which is also an offshoot of the hi-fi lifestyle. The case of Bangalore-based software engineer Amit Budhiraja, who committed suicide after allegedly killing his wife, underscores this.
Amit feared that his wife Rinku Sachdeva, who was working in a leading bank, would ditch him for her lover and would also take legal action against him.
His suicide not read like this: "I loved her a lot even though she had an affair with her colleague. I overheard their conversation when she used to lock the door and talk in low voice. There were also discussions on divorce . I kept quite, fearing that she might file (dowry & 498A) harassment case against me though I had not accepted anything from her . So I killed her."
In last September, Namitha Palleyi a software engineer from Orissa, committed suicide by hanging herself with a dupatta at her house in K.R. Puram police station limits. She was employed as an engineer with Tata Consultancy Services. The cause of her decision to end life was depression.
This is not a comprehensive picture of the Bangalore techies taking their lives. There are many other instances. Nor is the trend of suicide among the techies of Bangalore only. From Delhi to Hyderabad to Pune the cloud of suicide is looming large over the techie horizons.
But there is no software solution to help one get out of stress. So the companies feign ignorance about it instead.
If the state machinery does not want to transform the Silicon Valley to the valley of death, some serious steps have to be taken in war footing.
Do you have a solution in mind to help those who romance suicide?
Sudhakaran
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
BANGALORE, INDIA: Two suicides in a city within a span of 24 hours may not be a big news. But the news assumes significance because both the deceased are techies who earn a decent living, and an apparently happy life.
The latest case is the suicide of Abhaya Singh, a 25-year-old software engineer working with Satyam Software, who ended his life on Tuesday. The son of the SP of Jharkhand, Singh was staying as paying guest at Parappana Agrahara in the city.
It was on Monday that another techie named Vijay Babu, who was working with HP, ended his life by hanging from the ceiling fan at his residence in Madiwala.
This indicates towards the darker side of the hi-flying life the techies are supposed to lead. And this cannot be treated as isolated incidents.
Hardly two weeks prior to this incident, a girl working with Nokia in the city had ended her life.
According to the suicide note of 26-year-old M J Soni, it was the harassment in the work place that forced her to take her life. In that note she had pointed fingers towards two of her senior colleagues, who allegedly put her to untold mental harassment.
National Crime Records Bureau says that, on an average 35 in every 100,000 people in Bangalore commit suicide. Experts say in most of the cases in is the stress that led the people to death.
In most of the hospitals, one could see the brains of the Silicon Valley seeking treatment for stress-related ailments. And there are many who embrace drugs and alcohol to cope with the pressure. And the tragedy is that majority of those who suffer from stress are from the IT and BPO industry.
There are many reasons contributing to their problem – long working hours, competition and the ambition to excel so that they would get a foreign trip or some extra perks. And in the prevailing scenario the feeling of insecurity adds to the worries.
Added to this is the marital discord, which is also an offshoot of the hi-fi lifestyle. The case of Bangalore-based software engineer Amit Budhiraja, who committed suicide after allegedly killing his wife, underscores this.
Amit feared that his wife Rinku Sachdeva, who was working in a leading bank, would ditch him for her lover and would also take legal action against him.
His suicide not read like this: "I loved her a lot even though she had an affair with her colleague. I overheard their conversation when she used to lock the door and talk in low voice. There were also discussions on divorce . I kept quite, fearing that she might file (dowry & 498A) harassment case against me though I had not accepted anything from her . So I killed her."
In last September, Namitha Palleyi a software engineer from Orissa, committed suicide by hanging herself with a dupatta at her house in K.R. Puram police station limits. She was employed as an engineer with Tata Consultancy Services. The cause of her decision to end life was depression.
This is not a comprehensive picture of the Bangalore techies taking their lives. There are many other instances. Nor is the trend of suicide among the techies of Bangalore only. From Delhi to Hyderabad to Pune the cloud of suicide is looming large over the techie horizons.
But there is no software solution to help one get out of stress. So the companies feign ignorance about it instead.
If the state machinery does not want to transform the Silicon Valley to the valley of death, some serious steps have to be taken in war footing.
Do you have a solution in mind to help those who romance suicide?
U.N. Hides the Truth of Domestic Violence
Only part of the report is below, you can view the entire report by pressing the link below. According to UN own report more Indian Females assult there husbands then their Male partners.
http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-UN-Hides_Truth-of-DV.pdf
In India, 25.8% of females and 12.5% of males had committed severe assaults. Straus concludes, “the most
important similarity is the high rate of assault perpetrated by both male and female
students in all the countries.”11
THE EMPEROR’S CLOTHES:
HOW THE UN HIDES THE TRUTH OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
4
But is that explanation true? The research on domestic violence began in the early-1970s.
Almost every study disaggregated the results by sex. It is almost inconceivable that any
study would not break out the data. So the Beijing Declaration’s claim about an
“absence” of disaggregated data is clearly false.
Likewise, the 1999 WHO publication, Putting Women First: Ethical and Safety
Recommendations for Research on Domestic Violence Against Women, never gives any
hint that women are often instigators of DV. Likewise, the report does not suggest that
female abusers be the focus of research.18
Engendering Global Myths About DV
Psychologist John Archer reviewed and analyzed 552 DV reports from around the world.
His study represents the most rigorous summary ever conducted of the domestic violence
literature. His article, published in the Psychological Bulletin in 2000, reached this
conclusion:
“Women were slightly more likely than men to use one or more acts of
physical aggression and to use such acts more frequently.”19
But you would never suspect that by reading the many pronouncements on domestic
violence from the United Nations.
The UN emperor has no clothes.
References
1 http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/news/unwvaw.html
2 http://www.mediaradar.org/media_fact_sheet.php
3 http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf
4 http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/l11edsum.shtml
11 http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID16.pdf
17 www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/violence.htm
18 www.who.int/docstore/frh-whd/PDFfiles/Ethical%20Guidelines2.pdf
19
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10989615&dopt=Abstract
http://www.mediaradar.org/docs/RADARreport-UN-Hides_Truth-of-DV.pdf
In India, 25.8% of females and 12.5% of males had committed severe assaults. Straus concludes, “the most
important similarity is the high rate of assault perpetrated by both male and female
students in all the countries.”11
THE EMPEROR’S CLOTHES:
HOW THE UN HIDES THE TRUTH OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
4
But is that explanation true? The research on domestic violence began in the early-1970s.
Almost every study disaggregated the results by sex. It is almost inconceivable that any
study would not break out the data. So the Beijing Declaration’s claim about an
“absence” of disaggregated data is clearly false.
Likewise, the 1999 WHO publication, Putting Women First: Ethical and Safety
Recommendations for Research on Domestic Violence Against Women, never gives any
hint that women are often instigators of DV. Likewise, the report does not suggest that
female abusers be the focus of research.18
Engendering Global Myths About DV
Psychologist John Archer reviewed and analyzed 552 DV reports from around the world.
His study represents the most rigorous summary ever conducted of the domestic violence
literature. His article, published in the Psychological Bulletin in 2000, reached this
conclusion:
“Women were slightly more likely than men to use one or more acts of
physical aggression and to use such acts more frequently.”19
But you would never suspect that by reading the many pronouncements on domestic
violence from the United Nations.
The UN emperor has no clothes.
References
1 http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/news/unwvaw.html
2 http://www.mediaradar.org/media_fact_sheet.php
3 http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf
4 http://www.infoforhealth.org/pr/l11edsum.shtml
11 http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ID16.pdf
17 www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/beijing/platform/violence.htm
18 www.who.int/docstore/frh-whd/PDFfiles/Ethical%20Guidelines2.pdf
19
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10989615&dopt=Abstract
WHO’S FAILING THE FAMILY
BY ERIN PIZZEY
I greatly hoped, when the women’s movement first began to form in England in the late sixties and early seventies, that married woman like myself, at home bringing up our children, would no longer be isolated. I strongly believed that the family was the cornerstone of any civilisation. I was born in China and most of my formative years were spent in the Middle East. When I married and returned to England, I hadn’t realised, that in our Western world, the role of motherhood left those of us who chose to be at home, virtual outcasts. I imagined that this new women’s liberation movement, would devise strategies where all women from every walk of life could meet together to work for equality for women in the work place, in education and more importantly to raise the consciousness of the government and the nation to the vital work done my by mothers in the home.
In 1971, I flocked with my friends to the first feminist collectives held in London and other major cities of the country to listen to the prophets of the new revolution. Most of us were appalled at what we heard and intimidated by the rage and fury of the visionaries who claimed that they were speaking on behalf of ‘all women.’ I did not want to join a movement that preached hatred of family life and of men. Many of the women in those early days of the women’s liberation movement, defected back to their homes and to their husbands.
My vision for the future for women who chose marriage and family life was too fierce to turn my back on the thousands of women in this country, who also believed that we needed to redefine women’s role in the community. I stayed to argue with the leading proponents of the movement. I pointed out that I considered it a luxury to have a husband who paid the mortgage so that I could be at home with our children. Like so many women I had been forced to go out to work in order help pay the bills. I had to leave my little daughter with a child minder and I suffered like so many women do, from the guilt and the exhaustion of too many demands upon me and not enough time. I refused, I said, to see the family as a ‘place of oppression’ and to define my husband as ‘my jailer.’
Finally, those of us who opposed the Marxist Feminist leadership, were driven out of the movement. We objected to the violence taking place in England at that time. We did not see the invasion of the Miss World contest in 1970, by the women’s movement as a blow for women’s liberation, nor did we applaud the bombing of the BBC van outside the contest later that night (various anarchist groups were implicated). When in 1972 the Kensington boutique ‘Biba’ was also bombed, I realised that there was no place for me any longer amongst these violent and disastrous movements. What I did feel, listening and working in the women’s liberation offices in Little Newport Street, in London, was that many of the leading lights in this movement, while chanting their slogan, ‘the personal is political,’ were in denial of their own violent and abused childhoods. I saw them as ‘wounded warriors,’ unable to take responsibility for themselves and their damage, they projected their rage and their discontent, onto ‘all men.’
The fact that I was driven out of the movement only gave me the impetus to move on and to find a small house in Hounslow which I was given at a peppercorn rent. Here, with our children, we could meet and use our many and varied talents to work within our communities. Very soon the first ‘battered women,’ arrived and asked for refuge. Then, for me, the nightmare began. I realised as the women poured through the door with their children, that it would not be long before the women’s movement would also put on an appearance. I still had contacts within the movement. They reported that the movement no longer had any popular support from women across the country and that they also had no more funding.
By this time, I was very aware that while many of the women were indeed ‘innocent victims of their partner’s violence,’ many were not. Of the first hundred women that came into my refuge, sixty two were as violent as the men they left. They were not ‘victims of their partner’s violence.’ They were ‘victims of their own violence.’ Most of these women had experienced sexual abuse and violence in their own childhoods. Not only were they violent in the refuge but they were also violent and abusive to their children. They were the women most likely to go back to their violent partners or if they left, to go on to form another violent relationship. These were the women who most need our love and concern. I also saw all the men who came looking for their partners and their children. I could see quite plainly that domestic violence was not a gender issue. Both men and women could be equally violent. What I had to say was suppressed. Feminist journalists and radical feminist editors in publishing houses controlled the flow of information to the public. By now the feminist movement had a strangle hold on the subject of domestic violence. They had found a cause to further their political vision of a world without the family and without men. They also had the access to money. The abuse industry was born.
Because of my opposition to the hijacking of the refuge movement, I was a target for abuse. Anywhere I spoke there was a contingent of screaming, heckling feminists waiting for me. Hounslow Council decided to proceed against me in court and I was packed to go to prison for most of the twelve years that I ran my refuge. Abusive telephone calls to my home, death threats and bomb scares, became a way of living for me and for my family. Finally, the bomb squad, asked me to have all my mail delivered to their head quarters. The final outrage occurred when I was asked to travel to Aberdeen University to stand as a candidate for the post of Rector for the University in 1981. I was hopeful that I could have an influence on the young students at the university. At the polling booths Scottish Women’s Aid made it their business to hand out leaflets claiming that I believed that women ‘invited violence,’ and ‘provoked male violence,’ this was the gist of their message.
Exhausted and disillusioned at the growing hostility towards men in the Courts and the lack of support for family life from the government, I went reluctantly into exile with my children and grandchildren. My plan was to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico to write novels. I thought then that I could reach the people who read my non-fiction in my novels. Very soon I was running another refuge nearby and working against sexual abusers and paedolphiles. I found to my cost that Santa Fe was sufficiently lawless to attract these dangerous people. When I returned to England for the publication of my book ‘PRONE TO VIOLENCE,’ I was met with a solid wall of feminist demonstrators. ‘ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS,’ ‘ALL MEN ARE BATTERERS,’ read the placards. The police insisted that I have an escort all round England for my book tour. By then I knew that my position in America could not be permanent. The women’ movement there was even stronger and their strangle hold over the refuges( called shelters) and access to government and state resources was almost absolute. Although I was invited to lecture, every time I did the gender feminists were waiting to invade my workshops and to heckle my speeches. The threats and the persecution began again. Finally, one of my dogs was shot on Christmas day on my property, and I knew the time had come to leave.
In 1997, I was back in England again. I was homeless and penniless when a producer telephoned from the BBC and asked if I would do a programme with him for a BBC2 Community Programme Unit. The film was called ‘The Day That Changed My Life.’ Oddly enough my refuge was one of the first of the BBC2 Community programme unit ever produced. I had good memories of the integrity of the programmes they made in those days and I agreed. The producer visited me in my homeless family hostel in Richmond and then decided that I should make the documentary for another series also run by his department called ‘Counterblast.’ I was extremely doubtful that the programme would ever be aired. But the producer persisted and finally, ‘Who’s Failing The Family,’ will go out on BBC2 on Tuesday at 7.30 p.m. As a result of working on this film, I no longer feel so alone in this battle to save the traditional family. The people who have come to take part in the film are only a tip of the iceberg of concerned people in the rest of this country. Many others working in the field of domestic violence assured me that if they took part in the film, they would be personally, threatened and intimidated. A few, said they feared that their research grants would be withdrawn. Others were afraid of loosing their jobs. I know these people are not paranoid, I have personal experience of the brooding evil of the gender feminists who are in positions of power in our society. When I am asked if I am afraid to continue to fight, I can only reply, ‘tis a mighty God I serve, of whom shall I be afraid?’
I greatly hoped, when the women’s movement first began to form in England in the late sixties and early seventies, that married woman like myself, at home bringing up our children, would no longer be isolated. I strongly believed that the family was the cornerstone of any civilisation. I was born in China and most of my formative years were spent in the Middle East. When I married and returned to England, I hadn’t realised, that in our Western world, the role of motherhood left those of us who chose to be at home, virtual outcasts. I imagined that this new women’s liberation movement, would devise strategies where all women from every walk of life could meet together to work for equality for women in the work place, in education and more importantly to raise the consciousness of the government and the nation to the vital work done my by mothers in the home.
In 1971, I flocked with my friends to the first feminist collectives held in London and other major cities of the country to listen to the prophets of the new revolution. Most of us were appalled at what we heard and intimidated by the rage and fury of the visionaries who claimed that they were speaking on behalf of ‘all women.’ I did not want to join a movement that preached hatred of family life and of men. Many of the women in those early days of the women’s liberation movement, defected back to their homes and to their husbands.
My vision for the future for women who chose marriage and family life was too fierce to turn my back on the thousands of women in this country, who also believed that we needed to redefine women’s role in the community. I stayed to argue with the leading proponents of the movement. I pointed out that I considered it a luxury to have a husband who paid the mortgage so that I could be at home with our children. Like so many women I had been forced to go out to work in order help pay the bills. I had to leave my little daughter with a child minder and I suffered like so many women do, from the guilt and the exhaustion of too many demands upon me and not enough time. I refused, I said, to see the family as a ‘place of oppression’ and to define my husband as ‘my jailer.’
Finally, those of us who opposed the Marxist Feminist leadership, were driven out of the movement. We objected to the violence taking place in England at that time. We did not see the invasion of the Miss World contest in 1970, by the women’s movement as a blow for women’s liberation, nor did we applaud the bombing of the BBC van outside the contest later that night (various anarchist groups were implicated). When in 1972 the Kensington boutique ‘Biba’ was also bombed, I realised that there was no place for me any longer amongst these violent and disastrous movements. What I did feel, listening and working in the women’s liberation offices in Little Newport Street, in London, was that many of the leading lights in this movement, while chanting their slogan, ‘the personal is political,’ were in denial of their own violent and abused childhoods. I saw them as ‘wounded warriors,’ unable to take responsibility for themselves and their damage, they projected their rage and their discontent, onto ‘all men.’
The fact that I was driven out of the movement only gave me the impetus to move on and to find a small house in Hounslow which I was given at a peppercorn rent. Here, with our children, we could meet and use our many and varied talents to work within our communities. Very soon the first ‘battered women,’ arrived and asked for refuge. Then, for me, the nightmare began. I realised as the women poured through the door with their children, that it would not be long before the women’s movement would also put on an appearance. I still had contacts within the movement. They reported that the movement no longer had any popular support from women across the country and that they also had no more funding.
By this time, I was very aware that while many of the women were indeed ‘innocent victims of their partner’s violence,’ many were not. Of the first hundred women that came into my refuge, sixty two were as violent as the men they left. They were not ‘victims of their partner’s violence.’ They were ‘victims of their own violence.’ Most of these women had experienced sexual abuse and violence in their own childhoods. Not only were they violent in the refuge but they were also violent and abusive to their children. They were the women most likely to go back to their violent partners or if they left, to go on to form another violent relationship. These were the women who most need our love and concern. I also saw all the men who came looking for their partners and their children. I could see quite plainly that domestic violence was not a gender issue. Both men and women could be equally violent. What I had to say was suppressed. Feminist journalists and radical feminist editors in publishing houses controlled the flow of information to the public. By now the feminist movement had a strangle hold on the subject of domestic violence. They had found a cause to further their political vision of a world without the family and without men. They also had the access to money. The abuse industry was born.
Because of my opposition to the hijacking of the refuge movement, I was a target for abuse. Anywhere I spoke there was a contingent of screaming, heckling feminists waiting for me. Hounslow Council decided to proceed against me in court and I was packed to go to prison for most of the twelve years that I ran my refuge. Abusive telephone calls to my home, death threats and bomb scares, became a way of living for me and for my family. Finally, the bomb squad, asked me to have all my mail delivered to their head quarters. The final outrage occurred when I was asked to travel to Aberdeen University to stand as a candidate for the post of Rector for the University in 1981. I was hopeful that I could have an influence on the young students at the university. At the polling booths Scottish Women’s Aid made it their business to hand out leaflets claiming that I believed that women ‘invited violence,’ and ‘provoked male violence,’ this was the gist of their message.
Exhausted and disillusioned at the growing hostility towards men in the Courts and the lack of support for family life from the government, I went reluctantly into exile with my children and grandchildren. My plan was to go to Santa Fe, New Mexico to write novels. I thought then that I could reach the people who read my non-fiction in my novels. Very soon I was running another refuge nearby and working against sexual abusers and paedolphiles. I found to my cost that Santa Fe was sufficiently lawless to attract these dangerous people. When I returned to England for the publication of my book ‘PRONE TO VIOLENCE,’ I was met with a solid wall of feminist demonstrators. ‘ALL MEN ARE RAPISTS,’ ‘ALL MEN ARE BATTERERS,’ read the placards. The police insisted that I have an escort all round England for my book tour. By then I knew that my position in America could not be permanent. The women’ movement there was even stronger and their strangle hold over the refuges( called shelters) and access to government and state resources was almost absolute. Although I was invited to lecture, every time I did the gender feminists were waiting to invade my workshops and to heckle my speeches. The threats and the persecution began again. Finally, one of my dogs was shot on Christmas day on my property, and I knew the time had come to leave.
In 1997, I was back in England again. I was homeless and penniless when a producer telephoned from the BBC and asked if I would do a programme with him for a BBC2 Community Programme Unit. The film was called ‘The Day That Changed My Life.’ Oddly enough my refuge was one of the first of the BBC2 Community programme unit ever produced. I had good memories of the integrity of the programmes they made in those days and I agreed. The producer visited me in my homeless family hostel in Richmond and then decided that I should make the documentary for another series also run by his department called ‘Counterblast.’ I was extremely doubtful that the programme would ever be aired. But the producer persisted and finally, ‘Who’s Failing The Family,’ will go out on BBC2 on Tuesday at 7.30 p.m. As a result of working on this film, I no longer feel so alone in this battle to save the traditional family. The people who have come to take part in the film are only a tip of the iceberg of concerned people in the rest of this country. Many others working in the field of domestic violence assured me that if they took part in the film, they would be personally, threatened and intimidated. A few, said they feared that their research grants would be withdrawn. Others were afraid of loosing their jobs. I know these people are not paranoid, I have personal experience of the brooding evil of the gender feminists who are in positions of power in our society. When I am asked if I am afraid to continue to fight, I can only reply, ‘tis a mighty God I serve, of whom shall I be afraid?’
Men Shouldn't Be Overlooked as Victims of Partner Violence
Clinical & Research News
Joan Arehart-Treichel
In addressing intimate partner violence, the focus is usually on women who are physically battered by husbands or boyfriends. However, women sometimes hurt their partners as well.
Previous Section
Women are doing virtually everything these days that men are—working as doctors, lawyers, and rocket scientists; flying helicopters in combat; riding horses in the Kentucky Derby. And physically assaulting their spouses or partners.
In fact, when it comes to nonreciprocal violence between intimate partners, women are more often the perpetrators.
These findings on intimate partner violence come from a study conducted by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The lead investigator was Daniel Whitaker, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist and team leader at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (which is part of the CDC). Results were published in the May Journal of Public Health.
In 2001, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health attempted to amass data about the health of a nationally representative sample of 14,322 individuals between the ages of 18 and 28. The study also asked subjects to answer questions about romantic or sexual relationships in which they had engaged during the previous five years and whether those relationships had involved violence.
Of those subjects, 11,370 reported having had heterosexual relationships and also provided answers to the violence-related questions. So Whitaker and his colleagues decided to use the responses from these 11,370 subjects for a study into how much violence is experienced in intimate heterosexual partner relationships, who the instigators are, and whether physical harm accrues from the violence.
The 11,370 subjects, Whitaker and his colleagues found, reported on 18,761 relationships, of which 76 percent had been nonviolent and 24 percent violent. That almost a quarter of the subjects had engaged in violent relationships may seem high to some people, but “the rates we found are similar to those of other studies of late adolescents and young adults, a time period when interpersonal-violence rates are at their highest,” Whitaker told Psychiatric News. Also, he added, “these rates demonstrate the magnitude of interpersonal violence as a health and social problem.”
Furthermore, Whitaker discovered, of the 24 percent of relationships that had been violent, half had been reciprocal and half had not. Although more men than women (53 percent versus 49 percent) had experienced nonreciprocal violent relationships, more women than men (52 percent versus 47 percent) had taken part in ones involving reciprocal violence.
Regarding perpetration of violence, more women than men (25 percent versus 11 percent) were responsible. In fact, 71 percent of the instigators in nonreciprocal partner violence were women. This finding surprised Whitaker and his colleagues, they admitted in their study report.
As for physical injury due to intimate partner violence, it was more likely to occur when the violence was reciprocal than nonreciprocal. And while injury was more likely when violence was perpetrated by men, in relationships with reciprocal violence it was the men who were injured more often (25 percent of the time) than were women (20 percent of the time). “This is important as violence perpetrated by women is often seen as not serious,” Whitaker and his group stressed.
Of the study's numerous findings, Whitaker said, “I think the most important is that a great deal of interpersonal violence is reciprocally perpetrated and that when it is reciprocally perpetrated, it is much more likely to result in injury than when perpetrated by only one partner.”
The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, upon which this investigation was based, was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development with co-funding from 17 other federal agencies.
TY - JOUR
A1 - Whitaker, Daniel J.
A1 - Haileyesus, Tadesse
A1 - Swahn, Monica
A1 - Saltzman, Linda S.
T1 - Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence
Y1 - 2007/5/1
JF - American Journal of Public Health
JO - Am J Public Health
SP - 941
EP - 947
VL - 97
IS - 5
UR - http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/5/941
N2 - Objectives. We sought to examine the prevalence of reciprocal (i.e., perpetrated by both partners) and nonreciprocal intimate partner violence and to determine whether reciprocity is related to violence frequency and injury. Methods. We analyzed data on young US adults aged 18 to 28 years from the 2001 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which contained information about partner violence and injury reported by 11 370 respondents on 18761 heterosexual relationships. Results. Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases. Reciprocity was associated with more frequent violence among women (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=2.3; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.9, 2.8), but not men (AOR=1.26; 95% CI=0.9, 1.7). Regarding injury, men were more likely to inflict injury than were women (AOR=1.3; 95% CI=1.1, 1.5), and reciprocal intimate partner violence was associated with greater injury than was nonreciprocal intimate partner violence regardless of the gender of the perpetrator (AOR=4.4; 95% CI=3.6, 5.5). Conclusions. The context of the violence (reciprocal vs nonreciprocal) is a strong predictor of reported injury. Prevention approaches that address the escalation of partner violence may be needed to address reciprocal violence.
N1 - 10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020
ER -
Joan Arehart-Treichel
In addressing intimate partner violence, the focus is usually on women who are physically battered by husbands or boyfriends. However, women sometimes hurt their partners as well.
Previous Section
Women are doing virtually everything these days that men are—working as doctors, lawyers, and rocket scientists; flying helicopters in combat; riding horses in the Kentucky Derby. And physically assaulting their spouses or partners.
In fact, when it comes to nonreciprocal violence between intimate partners, women are more often the perpetrators.
These findings on intimate partner violence come from a study conducted by scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The lead investigator was Daniel Whitaker, Ph.D., a behavioral scientist and team leader at the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control (which is part of the CDC). Results were published in the May Journal of Public Health.
In 2001, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health attempted to amass data about the health of a nationally representative sample of 14,322 individuals between the ages of 18 and 28. The study also asked subjects to answer questions about romantic or sexual relationships in which they had engaged during the previous five years and whether those relationships had involved violence.
Of those subjects, 11,370 reported having had heterosexual relationships and also provided answers to the violence-related questions. So Whitaker and his colleagues decided to use the responses from these 11,370 subjects for a study into how much violence is experienced in intimate heterosexual partner relationships, who the instigators are, and whether physical harm accrues from the violence.
The 11,370 subjects, Whitaker and his colleagues found, reported on 18,761 relationships, of which 76 percent had been nonviolent and 24 percent violent. That almost a quarter of the subjects had engaged in violent relationships may seem high to some people, but “the rates we found are similar to those of other studies of late adolescents and young adults, a time period when interpersonal-violence rates are at their highest,” Whitaker told Psychiatric News. Also, he added, “these rates demonstrate the magnitude of interpersonal violence as a health and social problem.”
Regarding perpetration of violence, more women than men (25 percent versus 11 percent) were responsible. In fact, 71 percent of the instigators in nonreciprocal partner violence were women. This finding surprised Whitaker and his colleagues, they admitted in their study report.
As for physical injury due to intimate partner violence, it was more likely to occur when the violence was reciprocal than nonreciprocal. And while injury was more likely when violence was perpetrated by men, in relationships with reciprocal violence it was the men who were injured more often (25 percent of the time) than were women (20 percent of the time). “This is important as violence perpetrated by women is often seen as not serious,” Whitaker and his group stressed.
Of the study's numerous findings, Whitaker said, “I think the most important is that a great deal of interpersonal violence is reciprocally perpetrated and that when it is reciprocally perpetrated, it is much more likely to result in injury than when perpetrated by only one partner.”
The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, upon which this investigation was based, was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development with co-funding from 17 other federal agencies.
TY - JOUR
A1 - Whitaker, Daniel J.
A1 - Haileyesus, Tadesse
A1 - Swahn, Monica
A1 - Saltzman, Linda S.
T1 - Differences in Frequency of Violence and Reported Injury Between Relationships With Reciprocal and Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence
Y1 - 2007/5/1
JF - American Journal of Public Health
JO - Am J Public Health
SP - 941
EP - 947
VL - 97
IS - 5
UR - http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/97/5/941
N2 - Objectives. We sought to examine the prevalence of reciprocal (i.e., perpetrated by both partners) and nonreciprocal intimate partner violence and to determine whether reciprocity is related to violence frequency and injury. Methods. We analyzed data on young US adults aged 18 to 28 years from the 2001 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which contained information about partner violence and injury reported by 11 370 respondents on 18761 heterosexual relationships. Results. Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases. Reciprocity was associated with more frequent violence among women (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=2.3; 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.9, 2.8), but not men (AOR=1.26; 95% CI=0.9, 1.7). Regarding injury, men were more likely to inflict injury than were women (AOR=1.3; 95% CI=1.1, 1.5), and reciprocal intimate partner violence was associated with greater injury than was nonreciprocal intimate partner violence regardless of the gender of the perpetrator (AOR=4.4; 95% CI=3.6, 5.5). Conclusions. The context of the violence (reciprocal vs nonreciprocal) is a strong predictor of reported injury. Prevention approaches that address the escalation of partner violence may be needed to address reciprocal violence.
N1 - 10.2105/AJPH.2005.079020
ER -
Myths of domestic violence
Barbara Kay
June 2, 2010
To inaugurate a Domestic Violence Awareness Day conference in London, Ont., this coming Saturday, a vigil and commemorative ceremony will be held for Dave Lucio.
Dave Lucio’s life was cut tragically short three years ago this Sunday by a .40-calibre Glock pistol bullet to his head. The lethal shot was fired by Kelly Johnson, a woman he had broken up with the previous day after a three-year intimate relationship. When she pulled the trigger, Lucio was driving a van with Johnson sitting beside him. Johnson then turned the gun on herself. The circumstances therefore left no room for doubt about who perpetrated the crime.
Although by no means the first time a Canadian man had been killed by a present or former intimate partner — one-third of Canada’s approximately 70 annual intimate partner homicides are men killed by women — the case made waves because both the killer and the victim were police officers (Lucio a retired superintendent).
The story gathered wider cultural significance because then-London police chief Murray Faulkner (he has since retired) treated the case as a bilateral tragedy rather than a homicide. According to contemporary news reports, he went in person to comfort the family of Johnson — the killer — but didn’t even bother to call the parents of Lucio, the victim.
To longtime observers, Faulkner’s default sympathy for the woman in the case dovetailed with his much-publicized professional commitment to a feminism-conceived “gender paradigm” in the area of domestic violence (DV). Feminists insist DV is always the fault of controlling men, whether they dish it out or receive it, with women always the victims.
More than just a supporter, really, Faulkner was something of an activist (he and his men once marched in the street wearing red high heels. Rather than mouth the official platitude that the DV laws are gender-neutral, Chief Faulkner openly embraced the discriminatory training programs and gender profiling that feminist theory calls for, publicly stating that DV is a “gender problem … Men, and what it is to be a man in our society, [are] the problem.”
A man’s entitled to his opinions. But a statistic implies a fact. The London Police Service’s definition of domestic violence is “any use of physical or sexual force, actual or threatened, in an intimate relationship.” Couples don’t have to be living together according to the definition, and the Lucio-Johnson affair fit the police DV profile to a T.
And yet for 2007, Faulkner’s departmental records show that there was one DV homicide of a woman by a man, but zero homicides of a man by a woman. Put another way, London’s 2007 police stats show that DV-related violence was 100% male on female and 0% female on male, when in fact, if the Lucio-Johnson case had been entered in the appropriate category, the ratio would be 50:50.
“A bad statistic is harder to kill than a vampire,” according to a recent book on data manipulation, and no truer words were ever spoken when it comes to the DV industry. In the case of the London police statistics, the troublesome failure to designate the Lucio murder as DV calls their whole archive into question.
But it also calls into question statistics all over the country. Chief Faulkner may have been the most outspoken of police chiefs in his zeal to ingratiate himself with feminist theorists, but all police chiefs, family court judges and social service agencies are schooled in bias-selection or fabricated DV statistics. The Quebec DV mill is particularly notorious in this regard, and any number of DV police stats in other jurisdictions may be equally skewed to support myths.
Here are the facts. Nearly 250 scholarly studies (including studies by Statistics Canada) show women are at least as likely to initiate or engage with equal vigour in DV as men. Only 5.5% of all DV conforms to the gender paradigm of violent males who gratuitously batter non-violent females, and almost all of those men are extremely psychologically damaged (or culturally driven, a whole other ball game from normative DV). Self-defence accounts for only 10%-20% of female partner aggression. Fewer than 1% — not 22%, as often claimed — of emergency room visits by women are for DV assaults. False allegations of abuse, rarely punished, are at least as ruinous to men’s lives as actual abuse is to women’s.
But the DV myths go on and on. We owe it to Dave Lucio’s memory to see that they stop. The London police force should begin that process by investigating its own history of DV statistics — with objectivity, not ideology, as its guide.
June 2, 2010
To inaugurate a Domestic Violence Awareness Day conference in London, Ont., this coming Saturday, a vigil and commemorative ceremony will be held for Dave Lucio.
Dave Lucio’s life was cut tragically short three years ago this Sunday by a .40-calibre Glock pistol bullet to his head. The lethal shot was fired by Kelly Johnson, a woman he had broken up with the previous day after a three-year intimate relationship. When she pulled the trigger, Lucio was driving a van with Johnson sitting beside him. Johnson then turned the gun on herself. The circumstances therefore left no room for doubt about who perpetrated the crime.
Although by no means the first time a Canadian man had been killed by a present or former intimate partner — one-third of Canada’s approximately 70 annual intimate partner homicides are men killed by women — the case made waves because both the killer and the victim were police officers (Lucio a retired superintendent).
The story gathered wider cultural significance because then-London police chief Murray Faulkner (he has since retired) treated the case as a bilateral tragedy rather than a homicide. According to contemporary news reports, he went in person to comfort the family of Johnson — the killer — but didn’t even bother to call the parents of Lucio, the victim.
To longtime observers, Faulkner’s default sympathy for the woman in the case dovetailed with his much-publicized professional commitment to a feminism-conceived “gender paradigm” in the area of domestic violence (DV). Feminists insist DV is always the fault of controlling men, whether they dish it out or receive it, with women always the victims.
More than just a supporter, really, Faulkner was something of an activist (he and his men once marched in the street wearing red high heels. Rather than mouth the official platitude that the DV laws are gender-neutral, Chief Faulkner openly embraced the discriminatory training programs and gender profiling that feminist theory calls for, publicly stating that DV is a “gender problem … Men, and what it is to be a man in our society, [are] the problem.”
A man’s entitled to his opinions. But a statistic implies a fact. The London Police Service’s definition of domestic violence is “any use of physical or sexual force, actual or threatened, in an intimate relationship.” Couples don’t have to be living together according to the definition, and the Lucio-Johnson affair fit the police DV profile to a T.
And yet for 2007, Faulkner’s departmental records show that there was one DV homicide of a woman by a man, but zero homicides of a man by a woman. Put another way, London’s 2007 police stats show that DV-related violence was 100% male on female and 0% female on male, when in fact, if the Lucio-Johnson case had been entered in the appropriate category, the ratio would be 50:50.
“A bad statistic is harder to kill than a vampire,” according to a recent book on data manipulation, and no truer words were ever spoken when it comes to the DV industry. In the case of the London police statistics, the troublesome failure to designate the Lucio murder as DV calls their whole archive into question.
But it also calls into question statistics all over the country. Chief Faulkner may have been the most outspoken of police chiefs in his zeal to ingratiate himself with feminist theorists, but all police chiefs, family court judges and social service agencies are schooled in bias-selection or fabricated DV statistics. The Quebec DV mill is particularly notorious in this regard, and any number of DV police stats in other jurisdictions may be equally skewed to support myths.
Here are the facts. Nearly 250 scholarly studies (including studies by Statistics Canada) show women are at least as likely to initiate or engage with equal vigour in DV as men. Only 5.5% of all DV conforms to the gender paradigm of violent males who gratuitously batter non-violent females, and almost all of those men are extremely psychologically damaged (or culturally driven, a whole other ball game from normative DV). Self-defence accounts for only 10%-20% of female partner aggression. Fewer than 1% — not 22%, as often claimed — of emergency room visits by women are for DV assaults. False allegations of abuse, rarely punished, are at least as ruinous to men’s lives as actual abuse is to women’s.
But the DV myths go on and on. We owe it to Dave Lucio’s memory to see that they stop. The London police force should begin that process by investigating its own history of DV statistics — with objectivity, not ideology, as its guide.
Friday, June 18, 2010
India: Safe Haven for International Child Abduction
Monday, July 10, 2006
For several reasons, India has become a safe haven for child abductors.
First, India is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. The Convention is the fundamental international treaty that protects the rights of abducted children and serves to have them returned promptly to the country of their habitual residence.
Second, the court system in India is extremely slow so that an abductor has ample time to create “facts on the ground” in terms of getting the child sufficiently settled into life in India as to justidy an Indian court in ultimately deeming that it is best to keep the child in India.
Third, the law in India was previously settled that foreign children taken by a parent to India without the consent of the other parent would normally be returned to their country of residence or nationality. However recent decisions of courts in India have changed that rule and have held that foreign custody orders are merely items to consider as part of an overall custody review. Thus in a decision dated March 3, 2006 the Bombay High Court at Goa refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a British mother from Ireland whose eight-year-old daughter had allegedly been abducted to Goa by the child’s American father. The High Court dismissed the mother’s application on the ground that normal custody hearings should be undertaken and completed in Goa.
Fourth, no Indian legislation sets forth helpful law on this issue.
As a consequence, courts outside India should be extremely wary about allowing parents to take children for temporary visits to India over the objections of the other parents since there is a great likelihood that parents who wrongfully retain children in India will get away with their wrongful conduct scot-free in India.
Thus in Katare v. Katare, 125 Wn. App. 813, 105 P.3d 44 (Wash. 2004) the Court of Appeals in Washington State upheld in relevant part the trial court’s ruling in a case involving an American mother and an Indian father. The trial court held that it was not convinced that there was a serious threat that the father would abduct their children to India. However, the potential consequences of any abduction to India were severe and “irreversible.” Accordingly the court was warranted in imposing severe limitations on the husband's residential time with the children, including strict restrictions on the locations of such visitation, surrender of his passport, notification of any change of his citizenship status, and prohibition of his holding or obtaining certain documents (i.e. passports, birth certificates) for the children.
http://www.internationalfamilylawfirm.com/2006/07/india-safe-haven-for-international.html
For several reasons, India has become a safe haven for child abductors.
First, India is not a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. The Convention is the fundamental international treaty that protects the rights of abducted children and serves to have them returned promptly to the country of their habitual residence.
Second, the court system in India is extremely slow so that an abductor has ample time to create “facts on the ground” in terms of getting the child sufficiently settled into life in India as to justidy an Indian court in ultimately deeming that it is best to keep the child in India.
Third, the law in India was previously settled that foreign children taken by a parent to India without the consent of the other parent would normally be returned to their country of residence or nationality. However recent decisions of courts in India have changed that rule and have held that foreign custody orders are merely items to consider as part of an overall custody review. Thus in a decision dated March 3, 2006 the Bombay High Court at Goa refused to issue a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a British mother from Ireland whose eight-year-old daughter had allegedly been abducted to Goa by the child’s American father. The High Court dismissed the mother’s application on the ground that normal custody hearings should be undertaken and completed in Goa.
Fourth, no Indian legislation sets forth helpful law on this issue.
As a consequence, courts outside India should be extremely wary about allowing parents to take children for temporary visits to India over the objections of the other parents since there is a great likelihood that parents who wrongfully retain children in India will get away with their wrongful conduct scot-free in India.
Thus in Katare v. Katare, 125 Wn. App. 813, 105 P.3d 44 (Wash. 2004) the Court of Appeals in Washington State upheld in relevant part the trial court’s ruling in a case involving an American mother and an Indian father. The trial court held that it was not convinced that there was a serious threat that the father would abduct their children to India. However, the potential consequences of any abduction to India were severe and “irreversible.” Accordingly the court was warranted in imposing severe limitations on the husband's residential time with the children, including strict restrictions on the locations of such visitation, surrender of his passport, notification of any change of his citizenship status, and prohibition of his holding or obtaining certain documents (i.e. passports, birth certificates) for the children.
http://www.internationalfamilylawfirm.com/2006/07/india-safe-haven-for-international.html
Non-Resident Indians and International Child Abduction
Monday, December 21, 2009
Non-resident Indians always face the risk that, when their marriage breaks down, one spouse will run to India, often with the parties’ child or children, hoping for a better result in the Indian courts than in the American courts. Sometimes the children are used as hostage for a better financial settlement.
It is now reported that, in a case alleging parental abduction of a young child from England to India, the Supreme Court of India has ruled in favor of the left-behind parent. Anurag Mittal v. Rachana Aggarwal, Case No. 20333/2009, Supreme Court of India.
The reason that this is newsworthy is that Indian courts have in the past been reluctant to issue return orders in the case of the abduction of a child to India by an Indian parent. See for example the case of Sharma v. Sharma, Feb. 16, 2000, in which the Supreme Court of India refused to enforce a Texas custody order and required the lower Indian court to exercise custody jurisdiction even though the mother had removed the child from the family’s residence in Texas and had promptly commenced a case in India upon her arrival in that country.
The new case concerns a four-and-a-half year old girl who was born in England of Indian parents. The mother, who had also taken British nationality, took the child to India in September 2008. The mother’s father sought custody in India. The child’s father secured an order from the English High Court of Justice, Family Division in November 2008 requiring the child’s return to England. The Indian Supreme Court has ordered the child’s return to the U.K. It ruled that, “The decision has to be left to the British courts, keeping in mind the nationality of the child and the fact that both the parents had worked for gain in the UK and had also acquired permanent resident status there,'' adding that the English court had not directed handing over of the child to the father.
While the case is helpful it raises very considerable issues:
First, it has now been more than one year and three months since the abduction and the child has still not been returned from India.
Second, it is obvious that the left-behind parent has been compelled to incur very substantial legal expense in at least securing a favorable Indian order.
Third, apparently the left-behind father has not been able to see his child for the entire period of separation.
Fourth, the grounds upon which the decision was reached raise substantial questions as to their applicability to future cases, since the Court seems to leave substantial room for discretion by Indian judges in other international parental abduction cases.
http://www.internationalfamilylawfirm.com/2009/12/non-resident-indians-and-international.html
Non-resident Indians always face the risk that, when their marriage breaks down, one spouse will run to India, often with the parties’ child or children, hoping for a better result in the Indian courts than in the American courts. Sometimes the children are used as hostage for a better financial settlement.
It is now reported that, in a case alleging parental abduction of a young child from England to India, the Supreme Court of India has ruled in favor of the left-behind parent. Anurag Mittal v. Rachana Aggarwal, Case No. 20333/2009, Supreme Court of India.
The reason that this is newsworthy is that Indian courts have in the past been reluctant to issue return orders in the case of the abduction of a child to India by an Indian parent. See for example the case of Sharma v. Sharma, Feb. 16, 2000, in which the Supreme Court of India refused to enforce a Texas custody order and required the lower Indian court to exercise custody jurisdiction even though the mother had removed the child from the family’s residence in Texas and had promptly commenced a case in India upon her arrival in that country.
The new case concerns a four-and-a-half year old girl who was born in England of Indian parents. The mother, who had also taken British nationality, took the child to India in September 2008. The mother’s father sought custody in India. The child’s father secured an order from the English High Court of Justice, Family Division in November 2008 requiring the child’s return to England. The Indian Supreme Court has ordered the child’s return to the U.K. It ruled that, “The decision has to be left to the British courts, keeping in mind the nationality of the child and the fact that both the parents had worked for gain in the UK and had also acquired permanent resident status there,'' adding that the English court had not directed handing over of the child to the father.
While the case is helpful it raises very considerable issues:
First, it has now been more than one year and three months since the abduction and the child has still not been returned from India.
Second, it is obvious that the left-behind parent has been compelled to incur very substantial legal expense in at least securing a favorable Indian order.
Third, apparently the left-behind father has not been able to see his child for the entire period of separation.
Fourth, the grounds upon which the decision was reached raise substantial questions as to their applicability to future cases, since the Court seems to leave substantial room for discretion by Indian judges in other international parental abduction cases.
http://www.internationalfamilylawfirm.com/2009/12/non-resident-indians-and-international.html
False Allegation of Rape Drives Man to Suicide, But That Doesn’t Deter Accuser
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
By Abusegate Bob
A woman drove a man to suicide by crying rape and forced a second innocent man to consider taking his life after falsely accusing him of a similar sex attack.
25th May 2010
Despite being exposed in court as a serial liar, legal restrictions mean the 21-year-old woman can never be identified.
A jury took only 45 minutes to clear medical student Olumide Fadayomi, 27, of rape.
But several jurors at Sheffield Crown Court broke down in tears when the judge revealed the “victim” had a history of crying rape.
Judge Patrick Robertshaw launched a stinging attack on the Crown Prosecution Service for making Fadayomi stand trial.
He said: “The evidence did not, and was never going to, prove rape. The prime overriding consideration in the CPS’s decision had been merely that the complainant wished the case to go ahead….
http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/05/26/false-accusation-of-rape-drives-man-to-suicide/
By Abusegate Bob
A woman drove a man to suicide by crying rape and forced a second innocent man to consider taking his life after falsely accusing him of a similar sex attack.
25th May 2010
Despite being exposed in court as a serial liar, legal restrictions mean the 21-year-old woman can never be identified.
A jury took only 45 minutes to clear medical student Olumide Fadayomi, 27, of rape.
But several jurors at Sheffield Crown Court broke down in tears when the judge revealed the “victim” had a history of crying rape.
Judge Patrick Robertshaw launched a stinging attack on the Crown Prosecution Service for making Fadayomi stand trial.
He said: “The evidence did not, and was never going to, prove rape. The prime overriding consideration in the CPS’s decision had been merely that the complainant wished the case to go ahead….
http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/05/26/false-accusation-of-rape-drives-man-to-suicide/
DV Dimwits Beware! “Adopt-a-Politician” Campaign to be Launched Next Week
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Post Comments welcomeBy Abusegate Bob
Is your elected official a DV Dimwit when it comes to voting for every loony domestic violence bill that comes along?
This coming week, Abusegate, Investigate! will launch a high-profile campaign: “Adopt-a-Politician, Help Clean up Washington.” The campaign will list about 20 Washington incumbent politicians – Senators and Representatives – who just don’t get it when it comes to VAWA reform. The objective is simple: Target them for defeat on November 2, 2010.
We will invite Abusegate supporters to “adopt” one or more of these politicians, and do everything in their power to secure their defeat.
Tired of the DV Dimwits in Washington DC? Ready to bring about true change? Then jump on the “Adopt-a-Politician” bandwagon!
http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/05/27/dimwitted-lawmakers-beware-adopt-a-politician-campaign-to-be-launched-next-week/
Post Comments welcomeBy Abusegate Bob
Is your elected official a DV Dimwit when it comes to voting for every loony domestic violence bill that comes along?
This coming week, Abusegate, Investigate! will launch a high-profile campaign: “Adopt-a-Politician, Help Clean up Washington.” The campaign will list about 20 Washington incumbent politicians – Senators and Representatives – who just don’t get it when it comes to VAWA reform. The objective is simple: Target them for defeat on November 2, 2010.
We will invite Abusegate supporters to “adopt” one or more of these politicians, and do everything in their power to secure their defeat.
Tired of the DV Dimwits in Washington DC? Ready to bring about true change? Then jump on the “Adopt-a-Politician” bandwagon!
http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/05/27/dimwitted-lawmakers-beware-adopt-a-politician-campaign-to-be-launched-next-week/
Adopt-a-Politician: Here’s How to Give Your Opponent the Boot
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Before lawmakers take office, they take an oath that states, “I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” But when it comes to domestic violence, some elected officials seemingly disregard that promise.
Here are 10 actions you can take to get your candidate elected to office on November 2. Many of these actions apply even if you live outside the politician’s state or Congressional district:
1. Go the candidate’s campaign office and volunteer to pitch in – distribute door hangars, post a sign in your front yard, do neighborhood canvassing, whatever.
2. Volunteer to do phone banking (you can do this from anywhere in the country, calling from your cell phone)
3. Donate money. Even a $25 contribution is appreciated.
4. Show up at campaign rallies with a big sign that says, Fix Domestic Violence Laws NOW! Download sign
at: http://mensnewsdaily.com/images/promos/child-abuse-poster.jpg
5. Distribute Abusegate flyers at rallies, libraries, grocery stores, barber shops, and other community locations. Download flyer here: http://mensnewsdaily.com/?download=Abusegate%20Flyer%20doc
6. Sign up for your candidate’s email list. Stay informed about the latest polling results and political buzz:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
7. Sign up for Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en Enter the name of your opponent in the Search Terms box. When you receive a message, follow the link to the article, scroll down to Reader Comments, and let everyone know why we need to reform VAWA!
8. Set up a Twitter or Facebook blog and let the whole world hear about the dire need for VAWA reform.
9. Join forces with others in your area who are working to reform domestic violence laws. Be respectful and polite, strive to make a good impression on everyone you meet.
10. After your candidate wins, send a letter to the campaign manager describing the ways you helped and why you supported the candidate (“because I’m hoping he or she will work to reform anti-family domestic violence laws that are harming many thousands of his constituents.”). Mention you look forward to helping the lawmaker in future elections.
Above all, have fun!
Questions? Contact Adopt-a-Politician campaign manager Allie Rayed at allierayed@gmail.com.
http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/05/
Before lawmakers take office, they take an oath that states, “I, [name], do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” But when it comes to domestic violence, some elected officials seemingly disregard that promise.
Here are 10 actions you can take to get your candidate elected to office on November 2. Many of these actions apply even if you live outside the politician’s state or Congressional district:
1. Go the candidate’s campaign office and volunteer to pitch in – distribute door hangars, post a sign in your front yard, do neighborhood canvassing, whatever.
2. Volunteer to do phone banking (you can do this from anywhere in the country, calling from your cell phone)
3. Donate money. Even a $25 contribution is appreciated.
4. Show up at campaign rallies with a big sign that says, Fix Domestic Violence Laws NOW! Download sign
at: http://mensnewsdaily.com/images/promos/child-abuse-poster.jpg
5. Distribute Abusegate flyers at rallies, libraries, grocery stores, barber shops, and other community locations. Download flyer here: http://mensnewsdaily.com/?download=Abusegate%20Flyer%20doc
6. Sign up for your candidate’s email list. Stay informed about the latest polling results and political buzz:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/
7. Sign up for Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en Enter the name of your opponent in the Search Terms box. When you receive a message, follow the link to the article, scroll down to Reader Comments, and let everyone know why we need to reform VAWA!
8. Set up a Twitter or Facebook blog and let the whole world hear about the dire need for VAWA reform.
9. Join forces with others in your area who are working to reform domestic violence laws. Be respectful and polite, strive to make a good impression on everyone you meet.
10. After your candidate wins, send a letter to the campaign manager describing the ways you helped and why you supported the candidate (“because I’m hoping he or she will work to reform anti-family domestic violence laws that are harming many thousands of his constituents.”). Mention you look forward to helping the lawmaker in future elections.
Above all, have fun!
Questions? Contact Adopt-a-Politician campaign manager Allie Rayed at allierayed@gmail.com.
http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/05/
Former Shelter Worker Tells All: “80%-90% of the ‘victims’ there are not victims”
Thursday, May 27, 2010
By Abusegate Bob
Fabricated DV stories. Abusive treatment of shelter residents. Fudged utilization numbers. And more. This eye-opening account comes from a former shelter worker…
I used to work at a shelter here in Texas and really had my eyes opened. I went there thinking I was going to help victims. Well, an estimated 80%-90% of the “victims” there are not victims. Most are just homeless.
The “victims” call the hotline to get into the shelter. When asked what the abuse was and when, they say “None.” So the worker tells her that she will not qualify to come in. The caller then says, “Oh, my boyfriend hit me,” and that gets her in!!
Or a grown woman would call and say, “My mother threw me out because I wasn’t helping with the bills” and “My mother called me a ‘bitch’.” Being called a bitch was all it took to qualify!!
And many of the “victims” came in repeatedly. They leave and come back a week later and they are allowed to do this forever. There was once a woman who said her husband had been dead 10 years and was abusive before he died. Because she had been abused in her lifetime, she was let in.
And the abuse by women living in the shelter to the other women in the shelter is rampant. Sometimes that will get a woman kicked out and put on the no-admit list.
However, I am not saying that partner violence doesn’t exist. We had some very brutal cases, and a couple of women who ended up being murdered after they left and went back to the boyfriend. The point is, the occurrence of violence was nowhere near what the shelter director reported.
They also had a Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grant. When I brought to the director’s attention that we should not be reporting the ones (we had to report for the 6-month and year-end progress reports) who came in with only verbal abuse since verbal abuse is not a crime. But she wouldn’t listen to me.
Another big problem was that when our “numbers” went down, the director would call a meeting and ask what we were doing wrong. “We have got to get our numbers back up or else we’ll lose money,” she would say. One time she was asked, “Well, isn’t it a good thing for there to be less need for our shelter and that abuse is going down?” The director said, “Oh no, domestic abuse isn’t going down, it’s just that the hotline workers aren’t letting people in!!”
Now, an unusual thing was that the director was not too much into the feminist philosophy, thank goodness, and she even votes Republican. But she just wanted to have a big shelter that needed lots of money to serve their victims.
Another time some DOJ statistics came out that showed there were more victims in a dating or co-habitating relationship than married. I showed this to the community education department, hoping they would emphasize the need for marriage and intact families. Of course I was dismissed. That didn’t fit the agenda. And I saw that this was so true, an estimated 99% of the women who came in were living with an unmarried partner — and that goes for the ones who really suffered abuse and the ones who had not.
And on the questionnaire we gave to the victims, two of the questions were 1) Did he have a “special chair” that only he was allowed to sit in, and 2) Did he demand the remote control? Let’s hope some crazy legislature doesn’t try to add these to the legal definition of domestic violence!!
Sincerely,
A Former Shelter Worker
By Abusegate Bob
Fabricated DV stories. Abusive treatment of shelter residents. Fudged utilization numbers. And more. This eye-opening account comes from a former shelter worker…
I used to work at a shelter here in Texas and really had my eyes opened. I went there thinking I was going to help victims. Well, an estimated 80%-90% of the “victims” there are not victims. Most are just homeless.
The “victims” call the hotline to get into the shelter. When asked what the abuse was and when, they say “None.” So the worker tells her that she will not qualify to come in. The caller then says, “Oh, my boyfriend hit me,” and that gets her in!!
Or a grown woman would call and say, “My mother threw me out because I wasn’t helping with the bills” and “My mother called me a ‘bitch’.” Being called a bitch was all it took to qualify!!
And many of the “victims” came in repeatedly. They leave and come back a week later and they are allowed to do this forever. There was once a woman who said her husband had been dead 10 years and was abusive before he died. Because she had been abused in her lifetime, she was let in.
And the abuse by women living in the shelter to the other women in the shelter is rampant. Sometimes that will get a woman kicked out and put on the no-admit list.
However, I am not saying that partner violence doesn’t exist. We had some very brutal cases, and a couple of women who ended up being murdered after they left and went back to the boyfriend. The point is, the occurrence of violence was nowhere near what the shelter director reported.
They also had a Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) grant. When I brought to the director’s attention that we should not be reporting the ones (we had to report for the 6-month and year-end progress reports) who came in with only verbal abuse since verbal abuse is not a crime. But she wouldn’t listen to me.
Another big problem was that when our “numbers” went down, the director would call a meeting and ask what we were doing wrong. “We have got to get our numbers back up or else we’ll lose money,” she would say. One time she was asked, “Well, isn’t it a good thing for there to be less need for our shelter and that abuse is going down?” The director said, “Oh no, domestic abuse isn’t going down, it’s just that the hotline workers aren’t letting people in!!”
Now, an unusual thing was that the director was not too much into the feminist philosophy, thank goodness, and she even votes Republican. But she just wanted to have a big shelter that needed lots of money to serve their victims.
Another time some DOJ statistics came out that showed there were more victims in a dating or co-habitating relationship than married. I showed this to the community education department, hoping they would emphasize the need for marriage and intact families. Of course I was dismissed. That didn’t fit the agenda. And I saw that this was so true, an estimated 99% of the women who came in were living with an unmarried partner — and that goes for the ones who really suffered abuse and the ones who had not.
And on the questionnaire we gave to the victims, two of the questions were 1) Did he have a “special chair” that only he was allowed to sit in, and 2) Did he demand the remote control? Let’s hope some crazy legislature doesn’t try to add these to the legal definition of domestic violence!!
Sincerely,
A Former Shelter Worker
Google: “Abusegate” Passes 100K Milestone
Friday, June 11, 2010
By Abusegate Bob
In an ongoing effort to track the dissemination of information about Abusegate, we periodically do a Google search on the word “abusegate.”
For the first time, “abusegate” has exceeded the 100,000 milestone. As of today, “abusegate” has 102,000 hits on Google.
Keep spreading the word, Abusegate, Investigate! One of these days, Congress will take the hint.
http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/06/11/google-abusegate-passes-100000-milestone/
By Abusegate Bob
In an ongoing effort to track the dissemination of information about Abusegate, we periodically do a Google search on the word “abusegate.”
For the first time, “abusegate” has exceeded the 100,000 milestone. As of today, “abusegate” has 102,000 hits on Google.
Keep spreading the word, Abusegate, Investigate! One of these days, Congress will take the hint.
http://abusegate.mensnewsdaily.com/2010/06/11/google-abusegate-passes-100000-milestone/
R.A.D.A.R. – Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting
Despite the best of intentions, our nation's effort to curb domestic violence is not working. Current solutions not only fail to reduce domestic violence, but also create other severe problems. Families are being undermined and children harmed. Innocent Americans are penalized based on false accusations. And victims of violence are re-victimized by a rigid system that ignores their wishes, or excludes them altogether.
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://www.mediaradar.org/index.php
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://www.mediaradar.org/index.php
Abusegate: The Most Important Word in the English Language
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
From Media Radar
Abusegate refers to the systematic distortion of the truth about partner aggression by representatives of the domestic violence industry. These falsehoods form the basis of a well-financed but harmful effort to curb partner violence.
In January, we are mounting a high-profile campaign to inform the American public about the truth of domestic violence. At the national level, the campaign will be waged on 3 fronts:
1. A series of radio interviews featuring Dr. Donald Dutton of the University of British Columbia. Dutton is well-known for his willingness to challenge the prevailing domestic violence “paradigm,” as he likes to call it.
2. A series of op-ed columns by leading columnists.
3. A big lobbying effort on Capitol Hill highlighting how flawed information leads to flawed public policy.
Locally, we are inviting persons to get the word out every way imaginable: via blogs, letters to the editor, radio talk shows, messages to email lists, meetings, etc. Here’s a flyer you can pass out:
Media Radar Flyer
And here’s a Special Report that details many of the falsehoods:
Fifty Domestic Violence Myths
The fate of our families, our civil rights, indeed the fundamental values of our society hang in the balance. As VAWA comes up for reauthorization in 2010, we invite you to participate in this critical national effort to expose the lies of the DV industry.
http://www.mediaradar.org/
http://mensnewsdaily.com/sexandmetro/2010/01/05/abusegate-the-most-important-word-in-the-english-language/
From Media Radar
Abusegate refers to the systematic distortion of the truth about partner aggression by representatives of the domestic violence industry. These falsehoods form the basis of a well-financed but harmful effort to curb partner violence.
In January, we are mounting a high-profile campaign to inform the American public about the truth of domestic violence. At the national level, the campaign will be waged on 3 fronts:
1. A series of radio interviews featuring Dr. Donald Dutton of the University of British Columbia. Dutton is well-known for his willingness to challenge the prevailing domestic violence “paradigm,” as he likes to call it.
2. A series of op-ed columns by leading columnists.
3. A big lobbying effort on Capitol Hill highlighting how flawed information leads to flawed public policy.
Locally, we are inviting persons to get the word out every way imaginable: via blogs, letters to the editor, radio talk shows, messages to email lists, meetings, etc. Here’s a flyer you can pass out:
Media Radar Flyer
And here’s a Special Report that details many of the falsehoods:
Fifty Domestic Violence Myths
The fate of our families, our civil rights, indeed the fundamental values of our society hang in the balance. As VAWA comes up for reauthorization in 2010, we invite you to participate in this critical national effort to expose the lies of the DV industry.
http://www.mediaradar.org/
http://mensnewsdaily.com/sexandmetro/2010/01/05/abusegate-the-most-important-word-in-the-english-language/
Ben Ray Targeted by "Men's Rights" Group.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan is one of 20 members of Congress targeted by Abusegate Investigate for defeat in the upcoming election because of their support for domestic violence legislation.
The Lujan campaign calls the group "radical domestic violence deniers."
The news release doesn't mention Lujan's Republican opponent Tom Mullins. I've put in the question whether he'd accept the support of Abusegate. I haven't heard back yet, but will add his response when I receive it.
Here's the release:
WASHINGTON / June 9, 2010 – Twenty national lawmakers, known for their advocacy of policies that promote false allegations and serve to break-up families, have been targeted for electoral defeat in November.
The 20 lawmakers are supporters of discriminatory laws such as the International Violence Against Women Act that are known to violate fundamental civil rights and escalate partner tensions. The 20 Democratic and Republican lawmakers are listed at the end of this press release.
“Domestic violence laws that promote ‘false allegations’ of domestic violence contribute to the destruction of families. Such laws remove the right of many children to know one of their parents, and often their grandparents,” explains Sheryle Hutter of Colorado. “Thanks to such laws, my son hasn’t seen his daughter for 10 years, and I have not seen my grandchild for more than 3 years.”
The use of false abuse allegations to gain a tactical edge in child custody cases has been extensively documented:
http://www.saveservices.org/downloads/VAWA-A-Culture-of-False-Allegations
A growing number of civil rights organizations are questioning “get-tough” domestic violence laws. The Washington Civil Rights Council has described the Violence Against Women Act as the “biggest civil rights roll-back since the Jim Crow era.” Last year the Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union successfully challenged a case in which a man falsely-accused of domestic violence was denied the right to a hearing.
Women’s groups such as Concerned Women for America have also expressed concerns with what it calls violence against women “misinformation.” In May 5, 2010 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Concerned Women for America warned that abuse-reduction programs need to “take the ‘gender’ politics and ‘politically-correct’ agenda out of the public policy solutions.”
The effectiveness of domestic violence programs is likewise being challenged. According to Department of Justice official Angela Moore Parmley, “We have no evidence to date that VAWA [Violence Against Women Act] has led to a decrease in the overall levels of violence against women.”
Research shows women are as likely as men to initiate physical abuse against their intimate partners: But VAWA-funded programs may present misleading statistics.
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
The list of those targeted is below. Note the name of Sen. Arlen Specter. He actually was defeated in the Democratic primary a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think his support of the Violence Against Women Act was the main factor in his loss.
Senators:
Barbara Boxer - California
Mark Kirk - Illinois
Russ Carnahan - Missouri
Arlen Specter - Pennsylvania
Patty Murray - Washington
Representatives:
Vic Snyder – Arkansas
Lucille Roybal-Allard - California
Jeff Miller – Florida
Jim Marshall - Georgia
Walt Minnick - Georgia
John Tierney - Massachusetts
Donna Edwards - Maryland
Larry Kissel – North Carolina
Paul Hodes – New Hampshire
Rush Holt – New Jersey
Ben Luján – New Mexico
Mary Joe Kilroy - Ohio
David Wu – Oregon
Ted Poe - Texas
Steve Kagen - Wisconsin
UPDATE 8:30 pm:
Lujan's Republican opponent Tom Mullins responded:
"I've never heard of this group at all. It sounds like it is possibly a democrat group creating an issue to benefit Lujan ?"
In fairness, I probably should have included in the original version of this post the fact that I did verify the press release today with Paul Elam, editor of an online publication called Men's News Daily. If it is a hoax, it's pretty elaborate.
http://roundhouseroundup.blogspot.com/2010/06/ben-ray-targeted-by-mens-rights-group.html?showComment=1276860393528_AIe9_BG7DiNXi1oPMI2FO-VaRIk_EO5VuaFbakCu1b-8j9ElQBi3I9GYnbdNUk6eEYak2BN7K25E1oQNFC3S55S8Lq992HC8_3Q6ppVlgxp_kHwP2QScjqTeqk0nL9MzhqBJY-CVN_AF6JopYyKd3EbYBp84Al4PFMdloFrMtfzdcfZF-MOrMKD3g09jF9IdYp0I03tAXDxP57NpDF4bl09nDzQ7aURcQOWNRiUlmf-njluTz8zitc8pt23r6unQQBJxGVoayj28#c3083270584132064853
U.S. Rep. Ben Ray Lujan is one of 20 members of Congress targeted by Abusegate Investigate for defeat in the upcoming election because of their support for domestic violence legislation.
The Lujan campaign calls the group "radical domestic violence deniers."
The news release doesn't mention Lujan's Republican opponent Tom Mullins. I've put in the question whether he'd accept the support of Abusegate. I haven't heard back yet, but will add his response when I receive it.
Here's the release:
WASHINGTON / June 9, 2010 – Twenty national lawmakers, known for their advocacy of policies that promote false allegations and serve to break-up families, have been targeted for electoral defeat in November.
The 20 lawmakers are supporters of discriminatory laws such as the International Violence Against Women Act that are known to violate fundamental civil rights and escalate partner tensions. The 20 Democratic and Republican lawmakers are listed at the end of this press release.
“Domestic violence laws that promote ‘false allegations’ of domestic violence contribute to the destruction of families. Such laws remove the right of many children to know one of their parents, and often their grandparents,” explains Sheryle Hutter of Colorado. “Thanks to such laws, my son hasn’t seen his daughter for 10 years, and I have not seen my grandchild for more than 3 years.”
The use of false abuse allegations to gain a tactical edge in child custody cases has been extensively documented:
http://www.saveservices.org/downloads/VAWA-A-Culture-of-False-Allegations
A growing number of civil rights organizations are questioning “get-tough” domestic violence laws. The Washington Civil Rights Council has described the Violence Against Women Act as the “biggest civil rights roll-back since the Jim Crow era.” Last year the Connecticut chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union successfully challenged a case in which a man falsely-accused of domestic violence was denied the right to a hearing.
Women’s groups such as Concerned Women for America have also expressed concerns with what it calls violence against women “misinformation.” In May 5, 2010 testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Concerned Women for America warned that abuse-reduction programs need to “take the ‘gender’ politics and ‘politically-correct’ agenda out of the public policy solutions.”
The effectiveness of domestic violence programs is likewise being challenged. According to Department of Justice official Angela Moore Parmley, “We have no evidence to date that VAWA [Violence Against Women Act] has led to a decrease in the overall levels of violence against women.”
Research shows women are as likely as men to initiate physical abuse against their intimate partners: But VAWA-funded programs may present misleading statistics.
http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
The list of those targeted is below. Note the name of Sen. Arlen Specter. He actually was defeated in the Democratic primary a couple of weeks ago, but I don't think his support of the Violence Against Women Act was the main factor in his loss.
Senators:
Barbara Boxer - California
Mark Kirk - Illinois
Russ Carnahan - Missouri
Arlen Specter - Pennsylvania
Patty Murray - Washington
Representatives:
Vic Snyder – Arkansas
Lucille Roybal-Allard - California
Jeff Miller – Florida
Jim Marshall - Georgia
Walt Minnick - Georgia
John Tierney - Massachusetts
Donna Edwards - Maryland
Larry Kissel – North Carolina
Paul Hodes – New Hampshire
Rush Holt – New Jersey
Ben Luján – New Mexico
Mary Joe Kilroy - Ohio
David Wu – Oregon
Ted Poe - Texas
Steve Kagen - Wisconsin
UPDATE 8:30 pm:
Lujan's Republican opponent Tom Mullins responded:
"I've never heard of this group at all. It sounds like it is possibly a democrat group creating an issue to benefit Lujan ?"
In fairness, I probably should have included in the original version of this post the fact that I did verify the press release today with Paul Elam, editor of an online publication called Men's News Daily. If it is a hoax, it's pretty elaborate.
http://roundhouseroundup.blogspot.com/2010/06/ben-ray-targeted-by-mens-rights-group.html?showComment=1276860393528_AIe9_BG7DiNXi1oPMI2FO-VaRIk_EO5VuaFbakCu1b-8j9ElQBi3I9GYnbdNUk6eEYak2BN7K25E1oQNFC3S55S8Lq992HC8_3Q6ppVlgxp_kHwP2QScjqTeqk0nL9MzhqBJY-CVN_AF6JopYyKd3EbYBp84Al4PFMdloFrMtfzdcfZF-MOrMKD3g09jF9IdYp0I03tAXDxP57NpDF4bl09nDzQ7aURcQOWNRiUlmf-njluTz8zitc8pt23r6unQQBJxGVoayj28#c3083270584132064853
Maine: Supreme Court Hears Case on Out-of-Control DV Prosecutor
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
This is an update on a case currently being argued in front of the Maine Supreme Court about an out-of-control prosecutor named Mary Kellet, who has wrongfully charged and prosecuted many innocent men in Maine
The Maine Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the State of Maine vs. Vladek Filler.
National Director of the Domestic Abuse Helpline Jan Brown attended the hearing as did some others.
The “Michael Nifong on steroids” Mary Kellett has prosecuted countless innocent men on trumped up charges and false evidence. When it becomes easy for a prosecutor to lie to judges and juries with impunity, it is also easy for them to lie to the Supreme Court. Mary Kellett mislead the Supreme Court about her misconduct and the trial record.
When the trial court found Mary Kellett guilty of prosecutorial misconduct against Vladek Filler she continued to abuse her power as the representative of the State of Maine. She filed an appeal of her prosecutorial misconduct, then wrote the appeal herself, and then argued it herself before Maine Supreme Court. It is equivalent to a corrupt police officer investigating himself then writing a report finding the victims at fault.
The prosecutor brazenly lied to the Supreme Court about her misconduct and explicit court order violations at trial, pointed the finger at the defense attorney, and argued for Vladek Filler to be denied acquittal or even a new trial.
One Justice asked Mary Kellett whether she considered a custody battle for the children important in a case where the wife is alleging spousal rape against the husband. Mary Kellett responded that it is the defense who should be concerned with the importance of child custody battle evidence. The admission of the State’s unconstitutional “burden shifting” is stunning. The State of Maine has admitted that it is less concerned with evidence ulterior motives and false allegations, and relies on defense to seek the truth and be concerned with such evidence.
Vladek Filler’s attorney argued the systematic and flagrant prosecutorial misconduct committed by Mary Kellett and the insufficiency of evidence to support Vladek Filler’s conviction or even for bringing charges against him. That in fact, the evidence showed this prosecutor brought numerous charges of rape against a man where the accuser herself made admissions that it was consensual.
This highly politicized appeal is pending in the Maine Supreme Court. Not a single media outlet in Maine has covered the State’s appeal or the systematic prosecutorial abuse of innocent men in the Bar Harbor region. The prosecutorial and civil rights crimes against Vladek Filler and men like him must be exposed.
This is an update on a case currently being argued in front of the Maine Supreme Court about an out-of-control prosecutor named Mary Kellet, who has wrongfully charged and prosecuted many innocent men in Maine
The Maine Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the State of Maine vs. Vladek Filler.
National Director of the Domestic Abuse Helpline Jan Brown attended the hearing as did some others.
The “Michael Nifong on steroids” Mary Kellett has prosecuted countless innocent men on trumped up charges and false evidence. When it becomes easy for a prosecutor to lie to judges and juries with impunity, it is also easy for them to lie to the Supreme Court. Mary Kellett mislead the Supreme Court about her misconduct and the trial record.
When the trial court found Mary Kellett guilty of prosecutorial misconduct against Vladek Filler she continued to abuse her power as the representative of the State of Maine. She filed an appeal of her prosecutorial misconduct, then wrote the appeal herself, and then argued it herself before Maine Supreme Court. It is equivalent to a corrupt police officer investigating himself then writing a report finding the victims at fault.
The prosecutor brazenly lied to the Supreme Court about her misconduct and explicit court order violations at trial, pointed the finger at the defense attorney, and argued for Vladek Filler to be denied acquittal or even a new trial.
One Justice asked Mary Kellett whether she considered a custody battle for the children important in a case where the wife is alleging spousal rape against the husband. Mary Kellett responded that it is the defense who should be concerned with the importance of child custody battle evidence. The admission of the State’s unconstitutional “burden shifting” is stunning. The State of Maine has admitted that it is less concerned with evidence ulterior motives and false allegations, and relies on defense to seek the truth and be concerned with such evidence.
Vladek Filler’s attorney argued the systematic and flagrant prosecutorial misconduct committed by Mary Kellett and the insufficiency of evidence to support Vladek Filler’s conviction or even for bringing charges against him. That in fact, the evidence showed this prosecutor brought numerous charges of rape against a man where the accuser herself made admissions that it was consensual.
This highly politicized appeal is pending in the Maine Supreme Court. Not a single media outlet in Maine has covered the State’s appeal or the systematic prosecutorial abuse of innocent men in the Bar Harbor region. The prosecutorial and civil rights crimes against Vladek Filler and men like him must be exposed.
Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship
June 16, 2010
This article was published nearly one year ago. Because it richly exposes so many DV myths, Abusegate, Investigate! is reprinting the article in its entirety…
Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship
“Harder to kill than a vampire.” That is what the sociologist Joel Best calls a bad statistic.. But, as I have discovered over the years, among false statistics the hardest of all to slay are those promoted by feminist professors. Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K. D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors.
Her reply began:
“I appreciate and share your concern for veracity in all of our scholarship. However, I would expect a colleague who is genuinely concerned about such matters to contact me directly and give me a chance to respond before launching a public attack on me and my work, and then contacting me after the fact.”
The critical work of 21st-century feminism will be to help women in the developing world, especially in Muslim societies, in their struggle for basic rights.
I confess: I had indeed publicly criticized Lemon’s book, in campus lectures and in a post on FeministLawProfessors.com. I had always thought that that was the usual practice of intellectual argument. Disagreement is aired, error corrected, truth affirmed. Indeed, I was moved to write to her because of the deep consternation of law students who had attended my lectures: If authoritative textbooks contain errors, how are students to know whether they are being educated or indoctrinated? Lemon’s book has been in law-school classrooms for years.
One reason that feminist scholarship contains hard-to-kill falsehoods is that reasonable, evidence-backed criticism is regarded as a personal attack.
Lemon’s Domestic Violence Law is organized as a conventional law-school casebook–a collection of judicial opinions, statutes, and articles selected, edited, and commented upon by the author. The first selection, written by Cheryl Ward Smith (no institutional affiliation is given), offers students a historical perspective on domestic-violence law. According to Ward:
“The history of women’s abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. . . . The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man’s right thumb. The law became commonly know as ‘The Rule of Thumb.’ These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe.”
Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology–the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase “rule of thumb” did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.
A few pages later, in a selection by Joan Zorza, a domestic-violence expert, students read, “The March of Dimes found that women battered during pregnancy have more than twice the rate of miscarriages and give birth to more babies with more defects than women who may suffer from any immunizable illness or disease.” Not true. When I recently read Zorza’s assertion to Richard P. Leavitt, director of science information at the March of Dimes, he replied, “That is a total error on the part of the author. There was no such study.” The myth started in the early 1990s, he explained, and resurfaces every few years.
Zorza also informs readers that “between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency rooms in America are there because of domestic violence.” Studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, indicate that the figure is closer to 1 percent.
Few students would guess that the Lemon book is anything less than reliable. The University of California at Berkeley’s online faculty profile of Lemon hails it as the “premiere” text of the genre. It is part of a leading casebook series, published by Thomson/West, whose board of academic advisers, prominently listed next to the title page, includes many eminent law professors.
I mentioned these problems in my message to Lemon. She replied:
“I have looked into your assertions and requested documentation from Joan Zorza regarding the March of Dimes study and the statistics on battered women in emergency rooms. She provided both of these promptly.”
If that’s the case, Zorza and Lemon might share their documentation with Leavitt, of the March of Dimes, who is emphatic that it does not exist. They might also contact the Centers for Disease Control statistician Janey Hsiao, who wrote to me that “among ED [Emergency Department] visits made by females, the percent of having physical abuse by spouse or partner is 0.02 percent in 2003 and 0.01 percent in 2005.”
Here is what Lemon says about Cheryl Ward Smith’s essay on Romulus and the rule of thumb:
“I made a few minor editorial changes in the Smith piece so that it is more accurate. However, overall it appeared to be correct.”
A few minor editorial changes? Students deserve better. So do women victimized by violence.
Feminist misinformation is pervasive.. In their eye-opening book, Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women’s Studies (Lexington Books, 2003), the professors Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge describe the “sea of propaganda” that overwhelms the contemporary feminist classroom. The formidable Christine Rosen (formerly Stolba), in her 2002 report on the five leading women’s-studies textbooks, found them rife with falsehoods, half-truths, and “deliberately misleading sisterly sophistries.” Are there serious scholars in women’s studies? Yes, of course. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an anthropologist at the University of California at Davis; Janet Zollinger Giele, a sociologist at Brandeis; and Anne Mellor, a literary scholar at UCLA, to name just three, are models of academic excellence and integrity. But they are the exception. Lemon’s book typifies the departmental mind-set.
Consider The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (2008), by the feminist scholar Joni Seager, chair of the Hunter College geography department. Now in its fourth edition, Seager’s atlas was named “reference book of the year” by the American Library Association when it was published. “Nobody should be without this book,” says the feminist icon Gloria Steinem. “A wealth of fascinating information,” enthuses The Washington Post.
Fascinating, maybe. But the information is misleading and, at least in one instance, flat-out false.
One color-coded map illustrates how women are kept “in their place” by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Somalia, Uganda, Yemen, Niger, and Libya. All are coded with the same shade of green to indicate places where “patriarchal assumptions” operate in “potent combination with fundamentalist religious interpretations.” Seager’s logic? She notes that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman as his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same low rating on Seager’s charts because, she notes, “State legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001.” Never mind that the Ugandan practice is barbaric, that U.S. abortion law is exceptionally liberal among the nations of the world, and that the activism and controversy surrounding the issue of abortion in the United States is a sign of a vigorous free democracy working out its disagreements.
On another map, the United States gets the same rating for domestic violence as Uganda and Haiti. Seager backs up that verdict with that erroneous and ubiquitous emergency-room factoid: “22 percent-35 percent of women who visit a hospital emergency room do so because of domestic violence.”
The critical work of 21st-century feminism will be to help women in the developing world, especially in Muslim societies, in their struggle for basic rights. False depictions of the United States as an oppressive “patriarchy” are a ludicrous distraction. If American women are as oppressed as Ugandan women, then American feminists would be right to focus on their domestic travails and let the Ugandan women fend for themselves.
All books have mistakes, so why pick on the feminists? My complaint with feminist research is not so much that the authors make mistakes; it is that the mistakes are impervious to reasoned criticism. They do not get corrected. The authors are passionately committed to the proposition that American women are oppressed and under siege. The scholars seize and hold on for dear life to any piece of data that appears to corroborate their dire worldview. At the same time, any critic who attempts to correct the false assumptions is dismissed as a backlasher and an anti-feminist crank.
Why should it matter if a large number of professors think and say a lot of foolish and intemperate things? Here are three reasons to be concerned:
1) False assertions, hyperbole, and crying wolf undermine the credibility and effectiveness of feminism. The United States, and the world, would greatly benefit from an intellectually responsible, reality-based women’s movement.
2) Over the years, the feminist fictions have made their way into public policy. They travel from the women’s-studies textbooks to women’s advocacy groups and then into news stories. Soon after, they are cited by concerned political leaders. President Obama recently issued an executive order establishing a White House Council on Women and Girls. As he explained, “The purpose of this council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy.” He and Congress are also poised to use the celebrated Title IX gender-equity law to counter discrimination not only in college athletics but also in college math and science programs, where, it is alleged, women face a “chilly climate.” The president and members of Congress can cite decades of women’s-studies scholarship that presents women as the have-nots of our society. Never mind that this is largely no longer true. Nearly every fact that could be marshaled to justify the formation of the White House Council on Women and Girls or the new focus of Title IX application was shaped by scholarly merchants of hype like Professors Lemon and Seager.
3) Finally, as a philosophy professor of almost 20 years, and as someone who respects rationality, objective scholarship, and intellectual integrity, I find it altogether unacceptable for distinguished university professors and prestigious publishers to disseminate falsehoods. It is offensive in itself, even without considering the harmful consequences. Obduracy in the face of reasonable criticism may be inevitable in some realms, such as partisan politics, but in academe it is an abuse of the privileges of professorship.
“Thug,” “parasite,” “dangerous,” a “female impersonator”–those are some of the labels applied to me when I exposed specious feminist statistics in my 1994 book Who Stole Feminism? (Come to think of it, none of my critics contacted me directly with their concerns before launching their public attacks.) According to Susan Friedman, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, “Sommers’ diachronic discourse is easily unveiled as synchronic discourse in drag. .. . . She practices . . . metonymic historiography.” That one hurt! But my views, as well as my metonymic historiography, are always open to correction. So I’ll continue to follow the work of the academic feminists–to criticize it when it is wrong, and to learn from it when it is right.
This article was published nearly one year ago. Because it richly exposes so many DV myths, Abusegate, Investigate! is reprinting the article in its entirety…
Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship
“Harder to kill than a vampire.” That is what the sociologist Joel Best calls a bad statistic.. But, as I have discovered over the years, among false statistics the hardest of all to slay are those promoted by feminist professors. Consider what happened recently when I sent an e-mail message to the Berkeley law professor Nancy K. D. Lemon pointing out that the highly praised textbook that she edited, Domestic Violence Law (second edition, Thomson/West, 2005), contained errors.
Her reply began:
“I appreciate and share your concern for veracity in all of our scholarship. However, I would expect a colleague who is genuinely concerned about such matters to contact me directly and give me a chance to respond before launching a public attack on me and my work, and then contacting me after the fact.”
The critical work of 21st-century feminism will be to help women in the developing world, especially in Muslim societies, in their struggle for basic rights.
I confess: I had indeed publicly criticized Lemon’s book, in campus lectures and in a post on FeministLawProfessors.com. I had always thought that that was the usual practice of intellectual argument. Disagreement is aired, error corrected, truth affirmed. Indeed, I was moved to write to her because of the deep consternation of law students who had attended my lectures: If authoritative textbooks contain errors, how are students to know whether they are being educated or indoctrinated? Lemon’s book has been in law-school classrooms for years.
One reason that feminist scholarship contains hard-to-kill falsehoods is that reasonable, evidence-backed criticism is regarded as a personal attack.
Lemon’s Domestic Violence Law is organized as a conventional law-school casebook–a collection of judicial opinions, statutes, and articles selected, edited, and commented upon by the author. The first selection, written by Cheryl Ward Smith (no institutional affiliation is given), offers students a historical perspective on domestic-violence law. According to Ward:
“The history of women’s abuse began over 2,700 years ago in the year 753 BC. It was during the reign of Romulus of Rome that wife abuse was accepted and condoned under the Laws of Chastisement. . . . The laws permitted a man to beat his wife with a rod or switch so long as its circumference was no greater than the girth of the base of the man’s right thumb. The law became commonly know as ‘The Rule of Thumb.’ These laws established a tradition which was perpetuated in English Common Law in most of Europe.”
Where to begin? How about with the fact that Romulus of Rome never existed. He is a figure in Roman mythology–the son of Mars, nursed by a wolf. Problem 2: The phrase “rule of thumb” did not originate with any law about wife beating, nor has anyone ever been able to locate any such law. It is now widely regarded as a myth, even among feminist professors.
A few pages later, in a selection by Joan Zorza, a domestic-violence expert, students read, “The March of Dimes found that women battered during pregnancy have more than twice the rate of miscarriages and give birth to more babies with more defects than women who may suffer from any immunizable illness or disease.” Not true. When I recently read Zorza’s assertion to Richard P. Leavitt, director of science information at the March of Dimes, he replied, “That is a total error on the part of the author. There was no such study.” The myth started in the early 1990s, he explained, and resurfaces every few years.
Zorza also informs readers that “between 20 and 35 percent of women seeking medical care in emergency rooms in America are there because of domestic violence.” Studies by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics, an agency of the U.S. Department of Justice, indicate that the figure is closer to 1 percent.
Few students would guess that the Lemon book is anything less than reliable. The University of California at Berkeley’s online faculty profile of Lemon hails it as the “premiere” text of the genre. It is part of a leading casebook series, published by Thomson/West, whose board of academic advisers, prominently listed next to the title page, includes many eminent law professors.
I mentioned these problems in my message to Lemon. She replied:
“I have looked into your assertions and requested documentation from Joan Zorza regarding the March of Dimes study and the statistics on battered women in emergency rooms. She provided both of these promptly.”
If that’s the case, Zorza and Lemon might share their documentation with Leavitt, of the March of Dimes, who is emphatic that it does not exist. They might also contact the Centers for Disease Control statistician Janey Hsiao, who wrote to me that “among ED [Emergency Department] visits made by females, the percent of having physical abuse by spouse or partner is 0.02 percent in 2003 and 0.01 percent in 2005.”
Here is what Lemon says about Cheryl Ward Smith’s essay on Romulus and the rule of thumb:
“I made a few minor editorial changes in the Smith piece so that it is more accurate. However, overall it appeared to be correct.”
A few minor editorial changes? Students deserve better. So do women victimized by violence.
Feminist misinformation is pervasive.. In their eye-opening book, Professing Feminism: Education and Indoctrination in Women’s Studies (Lexington Books, 2003), the professors Daphne Patai and Noretta Koertge describe the “sea of propaganda” that overwhelms the contemporary feminist classroom. The formidable Christine Rosen (formerly Stolba), in her 2002 report on the five leading women’s-studies textbooks, found them rife with falsehoods, half-truths, and “deliberately misleading sisterly sophistries.” Are there serious scholars in women’s studies? Yes, of course. Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, an anthropologist at the University of California at Davis; Janet Zollinger Giele, a sociologist at Brandeis; and Anne Mellor, a literary scholar at UCLA, to name just three, are models of academic excellence and integrity. But they are the exception. Lemon’s book typifies the departmental mind-set.
Consider The Penguin Atlas of Women in the World (2008), by the feminist scholar Joni Seager, chair of the Hunter College geography department. Now in its fourth edition, Seager’s atlas was named “reference book of the year” by the American Library Association when it was published. “Nobody should be without this book,” says the feminist icon Gloria Steinem. “A wealth of fascinating information,” enthuses The Washington Post.
Fascinating, maybe. But the information is misleading and, at least in one instance, flat-out false.
One color-coded map illustrates how women are kept “in their place” by restrictions on their mobility, dress, and behavior. Somehow the United States comes out looking as bad in this respect as Somalia, Uganda, Yemen, Niger, and Libya. All are coded with the same shade of green to indicate places where “patriarchal assumptions” operate in “potent combination with fundamentalist religious interpretations.” Seager’s logic? She notes that in parts of Uganda, a man can claim an unmarried woman as his wife by raping her. The United States gets the same low rating on Seager’s charts because, she notes, “State legislators enacted 301 anti-abortion measures between 1995 and 2001.” Never mind that the Ugandan practice is barbaric, that U.S. abortion law is exceptionally liberal among the nations of the world, and that the activism and controversy surrounding the issue of abortion in the United States is a sign of a vigorous free democracy working out its disagreements.
On another map, the United States gets the same rating for domestic violence as Uganda and Haiti. Seager backs up that verdict with that erroneous and ubiquitous emergency-room factoid: “22 percent-35 percent of women who visit a hospital emergency room do so because of domestic violence.”
The critical work of 21st-century feminism will be to help women in the developing world, especially in Muslim societies, in their struggle for basic rights. False depictions of the United States as an oppressive “patriarchy” are a ludicrous distraction. If American women are as oppressed as Ugandan women, then American feminists would be right to focus on their domestic travails and let the Ugandan women fend for themselves.
All books have mistakes, so why pick on the feminists? My complaint with feminist research is not so much that the authors make mistakes; it is that the mistakes are impervious to reasoned criticism. They do not get corrected. The authors are passionately committed to the proposition that American women are oppressed and under siege. The scholars seize and hold on for dear life to any piece of data that appears to corroborate their dire worldview. At the same time, any critic who attempts to correct the false assumptions is dismissed as a backlasher and an anti-feminist crank.
Why should it matter if a large number of professors think and say a lot of foolish and intemperate things? Here are three reasons to be concerned:
1) False assertions, hyperbole, and crying wolf undermine the credibility and effectiveness of feminism. The United States, and the world, would greatly benefit from an intellectually responsible, reality-based women’s movement.
2) Over the years, the feminist fictions have made their way into public policy. They travel from the women’s-studies textbooks to women’s advocacy groups and then into news stories. Soon after, they are cited by concerned political leaders. President Obama recently issued an executive order establishing a White House Council on Women and Girls. As he explained, “The purpose of this council is to ensure that American women and girls are treated fairly in all matters of public policy.” He and Congress are also poised to use the celebrated Title IX gender-equity law to counter discrimination not only in college athletics but also in college math and science programs, where, it is alleged, women face a “chilly climate.” The president and members of Congress can cite decades of women’s-studies scholarship that presents women as the have-nots of our society. Never mind that this is largely no longer true. Nearly every fact that could be marshaled to justify the formation of the White House Council on Women and Girls or the new focus of Title IX application was shaped by scholarly merchants of hype like Professors Lemon and Seager.
3) Finally, as a philosophy professor of almost 20 years, and as someone who respects rationality, objective scholarship, and intellectual integrity, I find it altogether unacceptable for distinguished university professors and prestigious publishers to disseminate falsehoods. It is offensive in itself, even without considering the harmful consequences. Obduracy in the face of reasonable criticism may be inevitable in some realms, such as partisan politics, but in academe it is an abuse of the privileges of professorship.
“Thug,” “parasite,” “dangerous,” a “female impersonator”–those are some of the labels applied to me when I exposed specious feminist statistics in my 1994 book Who Stole Feminism? (Come to think of it, none of my critics contacted me directly with their concerns before launching their public attacks.) According to Susan Friedman, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, “Sommers’ diachronic discourse is easily unveiled as synchronic discourse in drag. .. . . She practices . . . metonymic historiography.” That one hurt! But my views, as well as my metonymic historiography, are always open to correction. So I’ll continue to follow the work of the academic feminists–to criticize it when it is wrong, and to learn from it when it is right.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Want to Know All the Dirty Details about VAWA Funding?
Thursday, June 17, 2010
By Abusegate Bob
The Congressional Research Service has recently issued a report that explains everything you want to know about funding levels and trends for the Violence Against Women Act.
The title of the report is Violence Against Women Act: History and Federal Funding, by Garrine P. Lany. The report can be found here:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CAsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fassets.opencrs.com%2Frpts%2FRL30871_20100226.pdf&ei=8RQaTJOXKITGlQfS9ZClCw&usg=AFQjCNHGXLWwUbAzx-LzHdh6oFH6Fp_-cw
Here’s the email of the author, if you have any questions: glaney@crs.loc.gov .
And you might want to ask Laney why the report constantly uses the phrase “violence against women,” when it obviously should refer to “violence against men and women.”
By Abusegate Bob
The Congressional Research Service has recently issued a report that explains everything you want to know about funding levels and trends for the Violence Against Women Act.
The title of the report is Violence Against Women Act: History and Federal Funding, by Garrine P. Lany. The report can be found here:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CAsQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fassets.opencrs.com%2Frpts%2FRL30871_20100226.pdf&ei=8RQaTJOXKITGlQfS9ZClCw&usg=AFQjCNHGXLWwUbAzx-LzHdh6oFH6Fp_-cw
Here’s the email of the author, if you have any questions: glaney@crs.loc.gov .
And you might want to ask Laney why the report constantly uses the phrase “violence against women,” when it obviously should refer to “violence against men and women.”
Watch out for the insanity of radical feminists!
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
By Uma Challa
It is becoming clearer everyday that radical feminists are not going to rest until every bit of sanity is removed from Indian law, and every sign of peace in an average Indian family is destroyed. Not two days after pushing for unequal adultery laws, National Commission for Women (NCW) is pushing for alimony for female live-in partners. The NCW recommends that “A woman in a live-in relationship should be allowed to seek maintenance if she is deserted or shunned by her partner…Citing instances where women living in relationships “in the nature of marriage’’ were left with little or no sustenance after being deserted”
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061227/asp/frontpage/story_7188737.asp
Live-in relationship is a very recent phenomenon, restricted to urban cities in India, and is probably unheard of, or is unacceptable in most parts of India. The reason why people opt for live-in relationships is either because they do not want the formation or breakup of their relationships to be governed by laws or simply because they perceive it as a way to defy the traditional concept of marriage (there could be other reasons that I may not be aware of). Whatever the reason may be, it would not be unreasonable to say that almost all women (and men) in live-in relationships are from urban backgrounds, hold some kind of educational degrees, and are either employed, or capable of acquiring employment. So, how is legally granted alimony to a female live-in partner justified?
Secondly, live-in relationships were meant to make breakups easier and least painful for both partners. The NCW uses the words “deserted or shunned” rather than “breakup” to describe the termination of a live-in relationship by a male partner. It appears that according to the new “rules” of NCW, a breakup must be something that happens when a “hapless woman” is “compelled” to leave an “untenable or unbearable” relationship, whereas a man leaving a relationship would be considered as a “cruel and heartless” act called “desertion”. Either way, since a man is assumed to be guilty until proven innocent by Indian law, a woman can always claim to be the one who was “deserted”, and demand alimony. Why not? It is a “lawful” way of making money even if you may call it unethical.
Next, the NCW will not spell out what the duration of a live-in relationship should be to qualify for alimony/maintenance. Apparently, “this aspect should be left to the courts to decide”. Now, how wonderful is that! So, the courts will set some standard duration of time as sufficient to claim alimony, and let us hope that this standard will be uniform across the country. The million dollar question is, how can a man and a woman “prove” how long they have been in a live-in relationship unless there is some record of their cohabitation? Does this mean live-in partners should now start maintaining records to prove the beginning and end of their relationship anticipating legal issues? Does this not defeat the main purpose of a live-in relationship, which is to keep law out of it?
The pushing of more and more new anti-male laws in India reflects the extremely sinister designs of radical feminists. The multi-pronged approach of radical feminists can be outlined as follows:
1) They brainwash women to believe that marriage is an undesirable bondage, and encourage women to shun marriage and childbirth.
2) They introduce laws that make it easy for a woman to thoughtlessly break her marriage on the slightest pretext.
3) They encourage the woman to use the same laws to threaten and blackmail a man to stay in a marriage that he does not wish to continue.
4) They recommend making adultery by a man punishable by law, so that he has no chance of seeking pleasure outside of an unhappy or unsatisfactory marriage, while ensuring that the woman is free to commit adultery under the title of a “hapless victim”.
5) They make sure every act of a man can be legally classified as abuse just based on a woman’s perception of abuse.
6) They impose unreasonable financial penalties on a man for anything that goes wrong with his marriage. They also provide for legal ways to emotionally torture a man by allowing the prosecution of his dear ones.
7) They push to bring live-in relationships under the purview of law, sealing out the possibility of a man seeking happiness by avoiding the legal hassles of marriage.
While systematically stripping men of their basic human rights, radical feminists use the downtrodden woman from rural India, who is completely unaware of Indian laws or would never dream of using them, as a mascot for their campaign for women’s rights in a “male dominated” India.
By Uma Challa
It is becoming clearer everyday that radical feminists are not going to rest until every bit of sanity is removed from Indian law, and every sign of peace in an average Indian family is destroyed. Not two days after pushing for unequal adultery laws, National Commission for Women (NCW) is pushing for alimony for female live-in partners. The NCW recommends that “A woman in a live-in relationship should be allowed to seek maintenance if she is deserted or shunned by her partner…Citing instances where women living in relationships “in the nature of marriage’’ were left with little or no sustenance after being deserted”
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1061227/asp/frontpage/story_7188737.asp
Live-in relationship is a very recent phenomenon, restricted to urban cities in India, and is probably unheard of, or is unacceptable in most parts of India. The reason why people opt for live-in relationships is either because they do not want the formation or breakup of their relationships to be governed by laws or simply because they perceive it as a way to defy the traditional concept of marriage (there could be other reasons that I may not be aware of). Whatever the reason may be, it would not be unreasonable to say that almost all women (and men) in live-in relationships are from urban backgrounds, hold some kind of educational degrees, and are either employed, or capable of acquiring employment. So, how is legally granted alimony to a female live-in partner justified?
Secondly, live-in relationships were meant to make breakups easier and least painful for both partners. The NCW uses the words “deserted or shunned” rather than “breakup” to describe the termination of a live-in relationship by a male partner. It appears that according to the new “rules” of NCW, a breakup must be something that happens when a “hapless woman” is “compelled” to leave an “untenable or unbearable” relationship, whereas a man leaving a relationship would be considered as a “cruel and heartless” act called “desertion”. Either way, since a man is assumed to be guilty until proven innocent by Indian law, a woman can always claim to be the one who was “deserted”, and demand alimony. Why not? It is a “lawful” way of making money even if you may call it unethical.
Next, the NCW will not spell out what the duration of a live-in relationship should be to qualify for alimony/maintenance. Apparently, “this aspect should be left to the courts to decide”. Now, how wonderful is that! So, the courts will set some standard duration of time as sufficient to claim alimony, and let us hope that this standard will be uniform across the country. The million dollar question is, how can a man and a woman “prove” how long they have been in a live-in relationship unless there is some record of their cohabitation? Does this mean live-in partners should now start maintaining records to prove the beginning and end of their relationship anticipating legal issues? Does this not defeat the main purpose of a live-in relationship, which is to keep law out of it?
The pushing of more and more new anti-male laws in India reflects the extremely sinister designs of radical feminists. The multi-pronged approach of radical feminists can be outlined as follows:
1) They brainwash women to believe that marriage is an undesirable bondage, and encourage women to shun marriage and childbirth.
2) They introduce laws that make it easy for a woman to thoughtlessly break her marriage on the slightest pretext.
3) They encourage the woman to use the same laws to threaten and blackmail a man to stay in a marriage that he does not wish to continue.
4) They recommend making adultery by a man punishable by law, so that he has no chance of seeking pleasure outside of an unhappy or unsatisfactory marriage, while ensuring that the woman is free to commit adultery under the title of a “hapless victim”.
5) They make sure every act of a man can be legally classified as abuse just based on a woman’s perception of abuse.
6) They impose unreasonable financial penalties on a man for anything that goes wrong with his marriage. They also provide for legal ways to emotionally torture a man by allowing the prosecution of his dear ones.
7) They push to bring live-in relationships under the purview of law, sealing out the possibility of a man seeking happiness by avoiding the legal hassles of marriage.
While systematically stripping men of their basic human rights, radical feminists use the downtrodden woman from rural India, who is completely unaware of Indian laws or would never dream of using them, as a mascot for their campaign for women’s rights in a “male dominated” India.
Misuse of Interpol Red Corner Notices
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
By Uma Challa
No matter what the reason for marital discord may be, women of Indian origin have been rampantly misusing IPC 498A to threaten, extort money from, and wreak revenge on Overseas Indian husbands and their families. The perception that Overseas Indians are affluent and more likely to part with money under duress makes them easy targets for threats and blackmail. Women of Indian origin are resorting to Indian laws despite several legal safeguards available to them within the jurisdiction of their respective countries of residence.
The reason for this trend is that Indian anti-dowry laws and laws against marital cruelty have several loopholes, and the Indian law enforcement system is replete with corrupt officials who, for their own monetary gains, embolden women to take undue advantage of the credibility granted to them by law.
The methods of implementation of these laws violate the basic human rights of accused individuals:
1) A wife’s word is deemed to be the truth by law, and a single line of complaint accusing the husband and his family is enough to arrest the accused without investigation, under a non-bailable offence.
2) An accused husband and his relatives (even those who never lived in the same household) are presumed guilty until proven innocent, and are forced to undergo long-drawn trials, spanning 5-7 years, just to prove that they did not commit any offence.
3) There is no penalty for a woman filing a false complaint, and thereby harassing innocent people, extorting money, and misusing the judicial process.
Misuse of IPC 498A has been acknowledged and condemned by various authorities in India:
1.The Supreme Court of India acknowledged that there are many instances where women are filing false 498A cases, and termed the misuse of provisions of this law as “Legal Terrorism”.
2.The World Health Organization, in its Report on India clearly cited Section 498A as one of the major reasons for the “Increasing Abuse of the Elderly in India”.
3.The Center for Social Research (India), in a study on the implications of Section 498A of IPC, indicated that 98% of dowry cases are false and baseless.
In addition, the preponderance of false cases against Overseas Indians has prompted the Governments of United States and Canada to issue travel warnings to individuals traveling to India to get married to women of Indian origin. Misuse of the provisions of Section 498A, has far reaching consequences on the personal and professional lives of innocent Overseas Indians and their India based families:
•A false criminal case destroys their reputation in their social and professional circles, and imposes immeasurable economic hardship and emotional trauma on them.
•Some lose their hard-earned overseas jobs, and are forced to relocate to India to fight long-drawn legal cases in order to prove their innocence.
•Overseas Indians, who unwittingly land in India for various reasons are arrested, ill-treated and exploited by the police and the legal system.
•The passport of a falsely implicated Overseas Indian is invariably seized as one of the conditions for granting bail, and subsequently, the accused is required to furnish enormous amounts of security in order to retrieve his/her passport.
•Overseas Indians who choose to remain abroad due to the fear of legal harassment are either declared “proclaimed offenders” or threatened of being declared “proclaimed offenders”.
•Many Overseas Indians have been forced to make “out-of-court” settlement of cases in India, and part with huge amounts of money due to the threat of “legal harassment”.
Recently, the Government of India has been issuing Red Corner Notices, through the Interpol, seeking the extradition of several Overseas Indians, thus equating innocent citizens with dreaded international criminals. An article (above) dated 23 October, 2006, in Deccan Chronicle, a regional newspaper, states that in Hyderabad (India) alone, 300 Red Corner notices have been issued. The title of the article reads, “Interpol aids AP husband-hunt”, giving a very false impression of the issue at hand. The author of the article labels husbands who have been only accused of harassing their wives as “crooked hubbies”. This article quotes CID deputy-inspector general S. Umapati as saying, “in some cases, NRI husbands patch up with their in-laws after notices are issued”. This statement itself is an indication of the flagrant misuse of the most serious instrument of Interpol for blackmail and extortion of husbands in petty marital disputes, disguised as criminal cases. Umapathi also stated, “Even if one such NRI husband was brought back to face trial, it would send a strong message”.
The fact of the matter is that all falsely accused Overseas Indians would gladly face trial to prove their innocence if a fair and speedy trial is made possible. The statements made by law enforcement officials, and parroted by the media, are based on mere allegations of a wife but not on investigation of facts. As mentioned earlier, Overseas Indians who go to India to fight their cases find themselves at an impasse as they are made to surrender their passports and remain in India for indefinite periods of time waiting for a trial or fighting prolonged trials. Meanwhile, their hard earned careers abroad are destroyed, and they are subject to severe economic and emotional turmoil in India. How would any Overseas Indian knowingly submit oneself to such legal harassment however well-intending and law-abiding one may be?
The blatant misuse of Interpol services to harass innocent people not only reflects poorly on the Government of India but also makes a mockery of the Interpol, by diverting its attention, time and resources away from serious cases of International crime.
Please speak up against such blatant violation of human rights in the name of women-protection laws. Ask the Interpol to:
1. conduct a thorough investigation into the myriad requests for Red Corner notices, particularly those based on charges related to dowry harassment and Section 498A of IPC, emanating from India.
2. refuse to honor these requests unless the Indian government provides clear and convincing evidence that an international crime has been committed.
3. note that false criminal charges are a crime, and therefore consider investigating, or charging those who issue these false requests.
-Uma
Related links:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1344682.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/World/NRI_News/Interpols_red-_corner_against_NRI/articleshow/msid-1344682,curpg-2.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/World/NRI_News/Interpols_red-_corner_against_NRI/articleshow/msid-1344682,curpg-3.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/NEWS/World/NRI_News/Interpols_red-_corner_against_NRI/articleshow/msid-1344682,curpg-4.cms
http://www.deccan.com/City/CityNews.asp?#25%20Interpol%20notices%20for%20dowry%20grooms
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