Open Letter to Kemi Badenoch
MWWT have sent an Open Letter to Kemi Badenoch, designed to open up a debate relating to men’s issues with a specific focus on the causes of male suicide.
It also has two powerful interviews with two young men who suffered violent abuse from their mothers. Both the police and social services were involved in one case and they chose to side with the mother.
Our letter:
Dear Kemi Badenoch
My name is Stephen Fitzgerald. I was a Founding member of the ManKind Initiative in 2000 and set up the Domestic Abuse Helpline for Male Victims and their Children. As such I developed an in depth understanding of all forms of abuse that men and children suffered from. It is the same as that which women suffer from but with one huge difference – Men received little or no help from the various agencies which should have supported them and little has changed now. I stepped down in 2007 and transferred my attention to a school in Zanzibar helping them to fulfil their wishlist and after 12/13 years left them with teacher accommodation, a well, toilets, new classrooms and an enterprise centre designed to leave them financially solvent. http://www.k-dimbanischool.co.uk/ As you can see, I care for all people.
I now ask a simple question. How many more men have to commit suicide before the Establishment addresses the underlying causes outlined below, seven of which account for male suicide? Men have formed 75% of suicides for many years. The appointment of a suicide minister will not solve the problem. An objective approach to dealing with the root causes outlined below will go a long way to reducing male suicide as well as creating a strong united front between men and women.
These interviews were recorded in 2021. We protected their identity by calling them Manor and Heaven.
Extract from Manor’s interview:
5 months ago I took 100 or so tablets to end my life –everything got too much for me – I could not process why these things had happened to me as a child — men do struggle as well, massively – we are all humans and we all have emotions which have to be dealt with – when I was young I tried to hang myself on the wardrobe door – on one occasion to punish me she threw my 2-year-old brother down the stairs – his head hit the radiator and he broke his collar bone – she blamed me for the incident and told the social workers and they believed her — tried to lock me in the bedroom for a week without food or water – escaped and she beat me with a hoover pipe, forced me into a cold bath trying to push my head under–informed me she could kill me whenever she wanted to.
Manor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noG2wrk-ZIc&t=1412s
Heaven’s interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHaam91L8eI&t=33s
Had men been able to give oral testimony in the recent development of the Domestic Abuse Act, their voices would have been heard but this was not to be due to intransigence on behalf of the establishment, which has set up an Equality Hub, which has nothing to do with equality and whose staff act as gatekeepers.
For too long men have been subjected to Gender Apartheid Policies from all parties, therefore has been the main cause of male suicide, which needs far more than the setting up of a Helpline. I will briefly outline our eight pressing issues which have been neglected for too long.
Family Law Reform – the Family Courts are biased in favour of women leading to 1.1m children in the UK growing up with little or no contact with their father. Broken contact orders are rife.
Domestic Abuse – despite forming 40% of the victims of domestic abuse, men receive less help than women and are highly marginalised being offered no part in the oral testimony during the development of the Domestic Abuse Bill. Their children fare even worse because when men go to the back of the queue, so do their children as seen in the interviews above. We now have the VAWG which excludes men and a Coercion Act which only applies in favour of women.
Court Anonymity and False Allegations – for too long women have been able to accuse men of sexual assault, true or otherwise, and be protected by anonymity. Not so for a man who may be innocent. When he has been proven not guilty, the woman still walks free. Recently an article in the Daily Mail outlined how a boy can be demonised by the flimsiest claim from a girl with consequences that “unfold like a dystopian nightmare”. He was hounded out of school and branded a rapist and other than his mother no one stood by him for fear of association.
Bench Book – first written in 2010 and designed to give sentencing advice to judges to ensure that women’s sentences were either suspended or reduced for similar crimes as those committed by men, who would receive a far heavier sentence. It did not stop there and women’s prisons were designed to act as rehab centres as opposed to men’s overcrowded prisons. As a result men make up 96% of the prison population.
Homelessness & Rough Sleeping – men form 83% of the figures. Enough said.
Male Suicide rates – men form 75% of the overall suicide rates. The Samaritans undertake a vital job but this figure will only come down if all of these issues are attended to. As yet, despite campaigning men’s issues are routinely ignored.
Men’s Health – in 2021 the Women’s Health Strategy was undertaken which included all women and was very detailed. There are no plans for an equivalent one for men and boys despite them having specific issues to overcome too. We contacted Sajid Javid – please see below “Letters to Ministers”.
Boy’s Education – boys lag behind girls at every stage of education and boys are more likely to be excluded from school.
Equality Campaign – this was set up in 2021 and run through to 2022
Letters to MPs
During this time we wrote to a number of MPs. Most letters remained unanswered, and those that were answered were template replies which offered sympathy but little or no support. One or two did offer assistance.
Letters to Ministers
Liz Truss – we sent a similar letter to Liz Truss which was passed onto the Equality Hub, which simply acted as a gatekeeper ensuring that our requests for help went nowhere. They offered sympathy as well as an assurance that although there was no Minister for Men, the Various Equality Ministers kept men in mind to ensure that men were considered. This was insulting and merely confirmed that the Gender Apartheid Policies would continue supported by the gatekeeper.
Sajid Javid Health Secretary – he did offer support inasmuch that he suggested that there should only be one Equality Minister to cover everyone. We have requested support for Men to be covered by the recent health survey undertaken for women only, to the exclusion of men. As yet we have had no reply to this request.
Dominic Raab Justice Secretary – as yet we have received no reply
The current response to all this is the following
- Outlaw catcalling and wolf-whistling as part of a crackdown on misogyny. Have you ever experienced a hen party in full swing? Have you ever asked young men if they have been subjected to verbal abuse such as being told that “all men are rapists and they are hated by women”? How will you crack down on misandry? On top of this young girls would have a field day by falsely accusing young boys of wolf-whistling.
- Will you also create a register for women who subject men to coercive and controlling behaviour (92%) and financial abuse(53%)? I picked all this up on my helpline and worse including sexual abuse (9%), sexual denigration(44%), and mothers encouraging their children to undermine their father(34%). Percentages taken from a pilot study (2000)
- I am shocked at the number of women murdered and agree that they should be able to walk the streets safely. I am equally shocked that Home Office Homicide in England and Wales year ending March 2021 revealed that the homicide rate was 9.9 per million population with the male rate (14 per million population) more than twice that for females (6 per million population). I feel that both men and women should be safe to walk the streets and perpetrators must expect to be punished.
- Rape is a most heinous crime and I feel that the perpetrators should be given long sentences, but I also feel that a false accuser should also receive a long sentence. We do not want a return to the days of DPP Alison Saunders who failed to deal with disclosure problems, which led to the collapse of rape trials. It also led to male suicides.
Kemi Badenoch, I am now appealing to your sense of justice and fair play. I am asking on behalf of all young men and boys that you will address all of these issues and work with us to resolve them. I look forward to your reply. Please do not pass it onto the Equalities Hub as we really do want to work with you on these issues. See letter of support from our Patron Belinda Brown.
Yours sincerely
Stephen Fitzgerald
MWWT Parliamentary Liaison
Letter of support from our Patron Belinda Brown
Dear Kemi Badenoch
Having spent a number of years studying issues as they affect men and boys I would like to second and give my support to everything which Stephen Fitzgerald has said. We look forward to working with the Conservative government on these issues over the next few years”…
Kind Regards
Belinda Brown Patron of MWWT
International Men and Boys
MWWT are now a member of International Men and Boys which covers 24 countries including the US, Canada, South America, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. They have regular Zoom meetings on subjects covering a range of men’s issues including Parental Alienation, Domestic Abuse et al. MWWT will try to encourage them to undertake specific campaigns.