The power of many

A global Twitter campaign was launched to promote the hashtag, #StopViolenceOnMen with over 36,000 tweets sent out over a four-day period. In India, the #StopViolenceOnMen hashtag trended, ranking in ninth place among all hashtags. Look at this event in All Bengal Men’s Forum, one of the most active Indian groups.

Then there were the women in Argentina who invaded the offices of the Minister for Women protesting for Falsely Accused Day on September 9, another event coordinated internationally by DAVIA. I loved the feisty language – here translated from Spanish - in their letter to the Minister: “Even so, you, Madam Minister, together with your cohort of ideologues, officials and communicators, will surely insist on denying that false complaints exist, that thousands of men are victims of them, and that the infamous judicial industry that feeds this order, is causing unparalleled harm to the rule of law.”

Making this all happen is Ed Bartlett who has been working for many years promoting fair treatment for men.  He’s the one who started the ball rolling to put together an international coalition to tell the truth about female violence.  

Under Ed’s guidance, DAVIA is currrently launching an ambitious project in January to block the expansion of the Istanbul Convention (IC) in Europe, a treaty ostensibly intended to combat violence against women in Europe. You may remember the fuss two years ago when the Hungarian Parliament rejected the ratification of this dreadful treaty declaring that the measure promoted “destructive gender ideologies.”

Too right. The IC treaty reeks of feminist ideology, promoting the usual tired dogma about domestic violence being caused by power imbalances that favour men over women. As Stephen Baskerville explains “The Convention has nothing to do with violent crime.  It is a political innovation that promotes radical political ideology.  Under the guise of protecting crime victims, it institutionalizes sexual ideology and transfers dangerous powers to activists engaged in gender warfare against the family, religious freedom, men, and civil liberties.”

Now it looks like the Convention is in trouble. Nine years after the IC came into force in 2014, Bulgaria, Czechia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia have not ratified the treaty, Turkey withdrew in 2021, and Poland has announced its plan to withdraw. The photograph at the top of this blog is from a rally against IC in Croatia.

Ed Bartlett has firm plans to ensure this is only the beginning. His email this morning announced DAVIA is in communication with the groups in Bulgaria and other Eastern European countries that led the fight to block the Istanbul Convention in their countries. He’s also just learned that, in Israel, the powerful Likud Party has agreed to not join the IC.  

Not bad, eh? Here’s DAVIA’s latest summary of everything that is wrong with the Istanbul Convention.  And if your organization would like to join forces with DAVIA, you can get more information here: davia@endtodv.org.

Here you are – a little inspiration to help everybody retain hope. If we pull together, there’s much we can do to ensure the New Year brings better times for men.