In the accompanying post I noted that the concerns of an MP over ratifying the Istanbul Convention (IC) were addressed in a letter from the Home Office which contained this statement,
“I would like to reassure you that my ministerial colleagues and I are satisfied that the Convention applies to male victims of these crimes as well as female ones”.
I noted that the IC gave no such impression, and myriad reasons to think the opposite.
I also noted that the UK will now become subject to monitoring by Grevio, a body created under the IC for this purpose.
Grevio’s Third Report was published on 14 June 2022. If the Home Office’s claim that men and boys are included (as potential victims) in the IC is credible, then one would expect this to be reflected in Grevio’s report. For example, the indisputable lack of service provision for male victims would be certain to be a particular focus of attention. I have therefore examined the report for any sign of concern over male victims.
The word “women” occurs in the report 374 times, and the word “girl” or “girls” 32 times.
The following extracts are the totality of occurrences of the words “men” or “boys” (in the plural)…
Para 27, Page 19
“…gender-based violence is present in Latvia and mostly affects women, therefore, the implementation of special measures in respect of women is necessary and is aimed at achieving effective equality between women and men.”
Para 89, Page 54
“…ensure that relevant professionals are informed of the absence of scientific grounds for “parental alienation syndrome” and the use of the notion of “parental alienation” in the context of domestic violence against women to overshadow the violence and control exerted by abusive men over women and their children, and their perpetuation through child contact…”
[More on PA below. Note that the UK is now obliged to enforce the falsity that there are no scientific grounds for PA. This is part of a larger picture in which legislative compulsion is being used to usurp the authority of, and misrepresent, science more generally].
Para 100, Page 59. This is also the only place in which “boys”, plural, occurs.
“An exchange of views was also held between GREVIO Vice-President Simona Lanzoni and the PACE Standing Committee in Rome on 25 November 2021, marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women by focusing on the role of men and boys in stopping gender-based violence. On the same occasion, PACE further launched a video entitled “what men and boys can do to fight sexism”, in which the Istanbul Convention is highlighted as the gold standard for combating violence against women.”
Para 139, Page 73
“The OSCE is the driving force behind many interesting and important projects that pursue the same goals as the Istanbul Convention. To cite just a few, in 2021, the OSCE Secretariat’s Gender Issues Programme launched a large-scale, multi-year project called WIN for Women and Men – Strengthening Comprehensive Security through Innovating and Networking for Gender Equality. GREVIO President Iris Luarasi was invited to become a member of WIN’s High-Level Advisory Group (HLAG), and participated at its inaugural meeting on 8 September 2021, which was chaired by OSCE Secretary General Helga Maria Schmid. The WIN project, which is running until December 2024, operates on the understanding that gender inequality is deeply rooted in inequitable social norms. This approach mirrors one of the purposes of the Istanbul Convention reflected in its Article 1, namely the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women and the promotion of substantive equality between women and men. Indeed, the WIN project aims at raising awareness of and providing training on substantive gender equality principles,…”
NB: OSCE = Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe
NB: “substantive equality” means “equality” of outcome, and “equality” does not mean treating everyone the same, hence “substantive equality” means preferencing women.
The only occurrence of “boy” (singular) is,
Para 13, Page 13
“This case concerns the murder of an eight-year-old boy by his father after previous allegations by the mother of domestic violence.”
Para 107, Page 62. This refers to the same case again in the context of the ECHR
“Building on the growing corpus of case law emerging from the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) that refers to GREVIO baseline evaluation reports and the Istanbul Convention in cases that relate to domestic violence and sexual violence, the Grand Chamber of the Court issued, on 15 June 2021, a landmark decision in the case of Kurt v. Austria (application no. 62903/15).149 This case concerned the murder of an eight-year-old boy by his father after previous allegations by the mother of domestic violence and constitutes the first Grand Chamber case dealing with the issue of domestic violence…”
Finally, the final paragraph of the press release announcing the publication of the report reads,
‘“Parental alienation” minimising evidence of domestic violence in civil proceedings: The minimisation of domestic violence within family court processes is closely linked to an increasing use of the concept of “parental alienation” to undermine views of child victims of domestic violence who fear contact with domestic abuse perpetrators, despite obvious risks for both adult and child victims. The report cites studies finding that claims of so-called parental alienation are being used to negate allegations of domestic and sexual abuse and that in many cases involving indications or findings of domestic abuse, these concerns ‘disappeared’ once the focus was on this concept.’
In my book, The Empathy Gap, I argue that in natural, evolved (and beneficial) matricentrism, women are preferenced only as surrogates for their children. In contrast, in socially intensified gynocentrism the child disappears from the picture and women become preferenced qua women. The feminist position on PA, as merely a ruse by abusive men to discredit the allegations against them, is an example of this. PA is child abuse (see this for the verbal gymnastics used by the feminist axis to elide it). Opposition to feminism is therefore a moral obligation.
In conclusion, neither the IC itself nor the Grevio report, nor any of the narrative surrounding the IC such as this, give any indication that men are included as victims in the IC, despite the assurances of the Home Office to the contrary.
Consequently the UK ratification of the Istanbul Convention appears to have been carried out under false pretences.