We Must Halt the Global Domestic Violence Disinformation Campaign

PRESS RELEASE

Henry Herrera: +1-301-801-0608

We Must Halt the Global Domestic Violence Disinformation Campaign

WASHINGTON / September 23, 2024 – The United Nations released a series of “Global Principles” in June designed to curb the spread of online disinformation (1). The Principles are the latest in the UN’s high-profile campaign to counter global disinformation (2).

One of the major areas of disinformation relates to the problem of domestic violence. Hundreds of scientific studies conducted in countries around the world affirm the Law of Gender Symmetry, that men and women are equally likely to engage in domestic violence (3).

But one of the United Nations’ major agencies — UN Women — has repeatedly engaged in disinformation on this topic. As revealed in its online pages on “Facts and Figures” (4) and “Explore the Facts” (5), UN Women has long engaged in a cover-up on a global scale regarding the reality of female-perpetrated abuse.

This denial is especially perplexing in light of the fact that domestic violence in lesbian couples is far common and harmful than among heterosexual or gay couples (6).

But taking their cue from UN Women, numerous national governments are engaging in similar disinformation campaigns designed to confuse and mislead the public:

England: This past Thursday, the DailyMail reported on Jayne Rudd, a worker at a domestic violence charity who used a kitchen knife to stab her boyfriend three times (7).

The very same day, The Guardian reported that the UK Home Secretary has directed that domestic abuse specialists be embedded in emergency call centers to support the “government’s goal of halving violence against women and girls in a decade.” (8) Inexplicably, the Home Secretary made no mention about halving domestic violence against men.

United States: The media has reported on nine domestic homicides of men perpetrated by their female partners during just the past month (9). In some of these cases, the women made false allegations of domestic violence against their partners, claimed self-defense, or both.

But male victims have remained hidden in the shadows, with abused men representing only nine percent of all victims supported by domestic violence grants from the U.S. Department of Justice (10). On September 12 the DOJ announced the award of $690 million to support victims of domestic violence (11). The announcement included no mention of the nine murdered men, or of male abuse victims in general.

Australia: On September 9, a Canberra woman tried to run over her former partner with her car, two times in front of their children. The female was charged with aggravated assault causing bodily harm, aggravated property damage, and driving offences (12).

Three days before, a media account revealed the increasingly frenetic and hysterical rhetoric surrounding the domestic violence debate in that country: “National cabinet met today to announce a tectonic shift in Australia’s approach to tackling violence against women and children.” (13) Again, no mention of violence against men.

Proven strategies exist to curb domestic violence (14), but they rely on an understanding of the fact that women engage in domestic violence as often as men.

The global domestic violence disinformation campaign represents an existential threat to the democratic principle of equal treatment under law. The well-financed effort also constitutes an attack on the notion of truth itself.

DAVIA calls on lawmakers to speak out against the willful misrepresentation of the truth by UN Women and other domestic violence groups.

Email: janine.kandel@unwomen.org

Links:

The Domestic Abuse and Violence International Alliance – DAVIA — consists of 156 member organizations from 37 countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, Latin America, and North America. DAVIA seeks to ensure that domestic violence and abuse polices are science-based, family-affirming, and sex-inclusive. https://endtodv.org/coalitions/davia/