Amnesty International Under Fire for Sex Bias

Washington, DC. - Amnesty International has come under fire for gender bias in its current family violence campaign, which groups are calling misleading and false.

On July 22 Amnesty International issued a press release claiming an "epidemic" of family violence and announcing a grassroots campaign to push for rapid Congressional approval of the Violence Against Women Act.

The Amnesty announcement ignored the fact that women are just as likely to commit family violence as men, and men sustain over one-third of injuries arising from domestic violence.

"Amnesty International is giving the impression that domestic violence is a problem that only affects women. That’s a slap in the face to the 835,000 men who are assaulted by their partners every year," according to RADAR spokesman Mike Geanoulis. "Amnesty is creating
a human rights double standard that leaves male victims silenced and forgotten."

The groups that are criticizing Amnesty’s family violence program include the American Coalition for Fathers and Children; National Congress of Fathers and Children, New Hampshire Chapter; Stop Abuse for Everyone; and RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting).

This past Tuesday Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young called for VAWA to "abolish the special role of feminist-dominated domestic violence coalitions in shaping federally-funded domestic violence programs."


"Amnesty International was once a respected human rights organization," explains Mike Geanoulis. "But now their campaigns seem to be based more on ideology than on actual violations of human rights."

RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting) is a coalition of men and women concerned about bias in domestic violence reporting. Visit www.mediaradar.org

For more information: info@mediaradar.org