Stopping Violence Coordinator Betrays NZ Men

FAMILIES APART REQUIRE EQUALITY (FARE)

14 November 2001 For immediate release PRESS RELEASE

Stopping Violence Coordinator Betrays NZ Men

"Stopping Violence Services Chief Executive Paul Prestidge has betrayed New Zealand men and their families and should resign immediately", FARE spokesperson Darryl Ward said today. He was commenting on Prestidge's media statement yesterday which sought to heap shame upon men for 'not taking an active stance against violence'".

"Once again he preached the tired old myth that it is men who are solely responsible for violence, when in reality both men and women have similar culpability."

"Organisations like ours continually encounter male victims of domestic violence. Most dare not call the Police because they could be blamed and arrested. Most have no access to refuges. They come to us, voluntary organisations with no state or corporate funding, because nobody else will listen".

"The main option offered by the Government is for these men is to attend compulsory 'counselling' which consist of intensive reprogramming with radical ideology and teaches them that they are 'abusers' and responsible for what has been done to them. We could never imagine Stopping Violence Services giving such a message to female victims of violence, yet this is the very sort of 'counseling' that Mr Prestidge's comparatively well-funded organisation force onto men. Prestidge even has the audacity to ask New Zealand men to give him more of their families' hard-earned cash to supplement what they have already paid his corrupted organisation from their taxes".

"We have never denied that some men are indeed violent and in need of some kind of help, but we would never accept that any good can come of a programme whose principle message is that masculinity is evil. Nor can we condone the actions of an organisation like Stopping Violence Services that actively conscripts its attendees from the ranks of victims of malicious false accusations for its own financial gain".

"We therefore call upon Mr Prestidge to immediately tender his resignation given his blatant betrayal of New Zealand men and their families for mammon", concluded Ward.

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