Madam, - In attacking Amnesty International's campaign to stop violence against women, Kevin Myers wonders if we do not care about violence against men (An Irishman's Diary, March 11th).
In its 40 years, Amnesty's focus has been predominantly on human rights violations against men, as prisoners of conscience, through the death penalty, through deliberate acts of genocide as in Srebrenica. The majority of victims of serious violence in all societies are men. And yes, as Amnesty has highlighted in its report, men are victims of violence in the home.
But the key fact is that the overwhelming majority of perpetrators of violence, against men, women and children, are male. No country in the world adequately protects women in their own homes; and 54 countries have legislation that actively discriminates against women. We know that many women subjected to violence by their partners and close relatives are too afraid to report it and often are not taken seriously when they do.
Here are some appalling facts:
1. Systematic rape on a mass scale, forcing women and girls ultimately to give birth to children fathered by their oppressors, as a deliberate weapon of war and part of "ethnic cleansing" is increasingly being used. Between 250,000 and 500,000 women and girls were raped in Rwanda during the genocide of 800,000 people in 1994 (International Red Cross, 2002).
2. One in five women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime (World Health Organization, 1997 report).
3. In the US a woman is raped every 90 seconds and a woman is battered by her partner every 15 seconds (US Department of Justice, 2000).
4. Seventy per cent of female murder victims are killed by their current or former male partners (WHO, 2002).
5. Eighty per cent of refugees are women and children (UNHCR, 2001).
6. In Ireland, in 2002, of 10,248 incidents of violence in the home recorded by the Garda, 91 per cent of offenders were male and 92 per cent of complainants were female. The WHO in the same year reports that only 20 per cent of physically abused women in Ireland ever contacted the Garda.
Violence against women is universal and stopping it is about changing attitudes as well as laws.Some people, such as Kevin Myers, may be in denial, but the evidence shows there is a huge problem, and one that men and boys urgently need to engage with.
For in spite of the appalling statistics, there is a silent majority of men and boys out there who do not engage in or endorse this type of criminal behaviour, and their voices need to be heard. - Yours, etc.,
COLM Ó CUANACHÁIN, Secretary General, Amnesty International Irish Section, Dublin 2.