L'après-rupture
Le ministre dit non
à l’aide aux hommes en difficulté… C’était
à prévoir!
L’équipe
de
L’APRÈS-RUPTURE a mis la main sur un document fort
intéressant qui en
dit long
sur les intentions gouvernementales pour ce qui concerne l’aide aux
hommes en
difficulté. Rappelons que L’APRÈS-RUPTURE s’était
dissocié des
organismes
concernés, prévoyant avec justesse l’inutilité
d’une telle démarche.
Voici le
document en question :
« Aux organismes qui ont appuyé la demande de Gilles
Rondeau pour le
dévoilement et l’application du plan d’action relatif à
la santé et au
bienêtre des hommes
Montréal, le 8 octobre 2010
Chers amis responsables et intervenants d’organismes oeuvrant
auprès
des hommes et chers partenaires,
Je désire d’abord vous remercier pour votre appui en faveur
d’une
réponse plus adéquate et plus large aux besoins en
santé et bien-être
des hommes du Québec. 204 organismes et établissements
dont le
vôtre se sont associés à nous dans cette
démarche. La lettre a
étéenvoyée au ministre de la Santé et des
services sociaux Yves Bolduc
le 20 mars.La réponse du Ministre nous a été
communiquée le 5 mai et
elle nous a déçu. Seules deux des quatre demandes que
nous avions
formulées ont reçu une réponse positive, à
savoir :
1) Qu’un comité de suivi ministériel pour l’application
du plan
comprenant au moins cinqpersonnes choisies parmi les organismes
signataires de la présente liste et moi?mêmesoit mis sur
pied et
convoqué régulièrement.
2) Que l’on nous explique comment ont été
dépensés les 750,000$
accordés en 2009^-2010.Concernant les demandes à l’effet
que le plan
soit dévoilé et appliqué nos
représentations auprès des autorités du
Ministère n’ont pas obtenu de réponse satisfaisante.
3) Que le plan d’action du MSSS relatif à la santé et au
bien?être des
hommes soit dès maintenant dévoilé publiquement
dans son entièreté.
4) Que le plan soit appliqué dans son ensemble à compter
de 2010-2011
et que les différentes phases de ce plan ainsi que les montants
annuels
qui s’y greffent soient précisés dès maintenant.
L’argument évoqué pour ne pas dévoiler le plan
d’action et d’y injecter
de nouveaux fondscette année est que les argents manquent
à cause de la
conjoncture économique défavorable et que les
dépenses publiques ne
peuvent être augmentées. Le ministre nous assure qu’il
demeure sensible
aux questions qui nous préoccupent et qu’il porte une attention
soutenue à la santé et au bien?être des hommes. Il
nous a invité à
participer au comité de suivi pour aider à la
détermination des
priorités en santé et bien?être des hommes pour les
années futures.
Nous avons estimé que les chances d’obtenir davantage à
court terme
étaient minces et qu’il valait mieux travailler à
soutenir le
développement des années futures. Nous participerons donc
en 2010?2011
au comité de suivi et suivrons les projets déjà
financés à même le
750,000$ d’argent récurrents.
Nous vous reviendrons prochainement afin de vous informer de
l'avancement du dossier et
de la stratégie qui sera élaborée afin de nous
assurer que la réponse
du MSSS soit plus substantielle et mieux adaptée aux
réalités vécues
par les hommes et par les organismes qui leur sont dédiés.
Gilles Rondeau
http://jevi.qc.ca/en/pdf/LettreauministreBolduc.20.03.2010.pdf
On verra bien si les ministres du
gouvernement du Québec,
particulièrement le ministre de la Santé et des Services
sociaux,
apporteront
la même réponse aux besoins des hommes et à ceux
des femmes.
À
tout le moins, il semble que la conjoncture défavorable n’a
pas empêché le ministre d’adopter en catastrophe un plan
controversé de
financement de la conception in vitro pour les femmes éprouvant
des
problèmes
de fertilité.
Le
ministre a sans doute jugé qu’il s’agissait d’une situation
plus urgente que celle des hommes itinérants, chez qui
l’espérance de
vie ne
dépasse guère celle des pays les plus pauvres du
Tiers-monde, mourant
de faim
et de froid dans les parcs et les rues de nos villes. On sait que le
ministre
n’a pas répondu aux demandes réitérées et
pressantes des organismes qui
tentent
de venir en aide aux milliers d’itinérants que compte le
Québec et qui
sont
cruellement à cours de ressources financières.
Le
ministre de la santé croit peut-être que la diffusion des
stéréotypes féministes vaut plus que l’adoption
d’un plan cohérent
d’aide aux
hommes aux prises avec l’itinérance, le suicide et la maladie
mentale
(attente
de 8 jours au Centre d’urgence de Robert-Giffard à Québec
à titre
d’exemple),
pour ne nommer que quelques-uns de ces problèmes.
P.S. Pour savoir ce qui se passe ailleurs....
Victory! CA Appellate
Court Says Excluding Men from
Domestic Violence Programs is Unconstitutional
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 23:47:03 -0400
October 14th, 2008 by Glenn Sacks, MA for Fathers &
Families
The
taxpayer lawsuit -- Woods. v.
Shewry -- was
initially filed in 2005 by four male victims of domestic
violence.
In 2007,
Sacramento Superior
Court Judge Lloyd Connelly dismissed the case, ruling that men are not
entitled
to equal protection regarding domestic violence because they
statistically are
not similarly situated with women.
Today the
Court of Appeal
reversed that decision and held:
The gender
classifications in
Health and Safety Code section 124250 and Penal Code section 13823.15,
that
provide state funding of domestic violence programs that offer services
only to
women and their children, but not to men, violate equal protection.
The
plaintiffs' attorney, Marc
E. Angelucci (pictured above left), said:
We’ve been
through the daisy
wheel of judicial activism on this issue. Now the courts have finally
addressed
the injustice, but the struggle is not over. Many taxpayer-funded
programs,
especially in
Men pay at
least half of the
taxes that fund these programs and they should be entitled to services
regardless of sex. I have seen the damage this does to men and kids and
I will
never stop fighting to end it, even if it means filing more lawsuits.
Numerous
experts submitted
sworn declarations supporting the plaintiffs and explaining that
Domestic
Violence against men is a serious but hidden problem. Children are
being
emotionally harmed as witnesses of the violence while their fathers are
unable
to get help.
Experts in
the Case explained
that although men report it less than women, empirical survey data
consistently
shows women are at least as violent as men in relationships, and that
men
suffer one-third of injuries.
This
research is listed below.
The Court's Opinion can be read at http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/C056072.PDF.
Angelucci
did fantastic work
in this case--I recommend all readers send him a congratulatory email
by
clicking here.
The
central plaintiff in the
case was David Woods. The plight of David and his daughter Maegan is
detailed
in Marc's column Domestic Violence Lawsuit Will Help
Secure Services for All Abuse Victims (
At the age
of 11, Maegan tried
to stop a domestic dispute between her parents. She soon found herself
staring
down the barrel of her father's shotgun. She watched helplessly as the
trigger
was pulled. She is only alive today because the gun didn't fire--the
safety was
on.
Maegan was
abused and
witnessed domestic violence in her home for most of her childhood. By
age seven
there had been knife attacks, punches, kicks, and more. It was hard to
leave--the abuser was the one who earned the money, and the victim was
unable
to work because of a disability. On numerous occasions they looked for
help to
escape the abuse but were refused. Why?
Because in
Maegan's family,
the abused spouse was her father, and the battering and child abuse
were
perpetrated by her mother.
The
California Battered Women
Protection Act of 1994, codified in Health & Safety Codes Section
124250,
et. seq., created funding for domestic violence shelter-based services.
However, by defining domestic violence as something only experienced by
women,
the statutes exclude male victims from receiving state-funded domestic
violence
services, including shelter, hotel arrangements, counseling and legal
services.
Maegan,
now 21, and her
father, David Woods, are the lead plaintiffs in a new lawsuit against
the State
of
On several
occasions David
decided that he and Maegan should get out of the house to escape Ruth's
violence. However, with his disabling condition and inability to work,
David
had no money to provide for himself and his daughter. Numerous times he
contacted a
By
February 2003, Maegan began
telling her father to find a place of safety from Ruth's violence. He
again
called WEAVE and again was told "we don't help men." Maegan, then 18,
became so frustrated watching David being abused that she called WEAVE
herself
and insisted they help her father. According to Maegan, WEAVE said they
do not
help men, and that men are the perpetrators of domestic violence, not
the
victims.
That year
Ruth finally began
to seek professional help for her problems. David, loyal and a firm
believer in
his marriage vows, stuck by her. In January 2004, the two appeared
together on
the NBC's John Walsh Show and discussed Ruth's violence.
Domestic
violence policies
based on the woman good/man bad model kept David trapped in his violent
marriage in a number of ways. The biggest reason David didn't leave
Ruth was
Maegan. She was frequently the target of Ruth's attacks, particularly
when
David wasn't around to protect her and take Ruth's blows.
Domestic
violence researcher
Richard Gelles, whose groundbreaking work on domestic violence in the
late
1970s was instrumental in bringing the issue to public consciousness,
explains
that current policies often trap abused fathers like David. They can't
leave
their wives because this would leave their children unprotected in the
hands of
an abuser. If they simply take their children, they can be arrested for
kidnapping. Moreover, they would probably lose custody of their
children in the
divorce anyway, again leaving their children in harm's way.
These
cases often have tragic
results. In the highly-publicized Socorro Caro murder case, Socorro
often
abused her husband Xavier, a prominent
While
police intervention
often works for abused women, abused men understandably fear that once
the
police are involved, their wives will accuse them of being the abuser
and it is
they who will be believed. Draconian arrest policies often direct
police to
make an arrest, and police are often pressured to arrest the man.
The
anti-male bias of police
policies was evident in the Woods case. During the 1995 shotgun
incident, Ruth
called the police after David wrestled the shotgun away from her.
Maegan yelled
to her mom, "Tell the truth!" and Ruth told the police she wanted
them to come because she wanted to kill her husband.
Nevertheless,
when the police
arrived and David opened the door to let them in, the officers
immediately
grabbed him by the wrist, wrestled him to the ground, and handcuffed
him. They
only uncuffed him after Maegan told them that it was her mother who had
the
gun.
Maegan
told her story in Abused Man's Daughter Speaks
Out--Maegan Talks About Her Childhood.
[Late
note: There have
now been several stories about this case in the mainstream media. These
include
stories in the Sacramento Bee, San Francisco
Chronicle, National Post (Canada), and the Metropolitan
News-Enterprise
(Los Angeles). I suggest
readers visit those sites and post supportive comments. Congratulations
again
to Angelucci for his fantastic work in this case. --GS]
To learn
more about domestic violence,
Angelucci suggests the following resources:
California
State Long Beach
Professor Martin Fiebert's summary of over 200 of the studies in an
online
bibliography at www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.
Prof.
Linda Kelly, 'Disabusing
the Definition of Domestic Abuse,' 30 Florida State Law Review 791
(2003) www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf.
Prof. Don
Dutton,
'Transforming a flawed policy: A call to revive psychology and science
in
domestic violence research and practice,' Aggression and Violent
Behavior, (11)
2006, 457-483 www.nfvlrc.org/docs/DuttonCorvo.policypaper.pdf
Canadian
Government Report: http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/ncfv-cnivf/familyviolence/pdfs/Intimate_Partner.pdf
http://glennsacks.com/blog/?cat=6