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Dear Ms. Maurer,
As we learned from the media today, the 2008 Equal Opportunity Award was awarded to the Zurich women's shelters.
We at VeV also think the work of women's shelters is important and right.
Just: We don't think it's right that a one-sided policy to promote women is always pursued under the title "equality".
We believe that equality means that both sides must be treated equally.
And this is precisely not the case in this case.
There are around two dozen women's shelters throughout Switzerland. There are 4 in the canton of Zurich alone and 2 in the city of Zurich.
As you can read in your own police statistics, men are the victims of domestic violence in around 20% of all cases.
These are not fantasy numbers but confirmed information from police statistics.
There is NOT A SINGLE men's shelter available to these 20% of male victims. Neither in Zurich nor anywhere else in Switzerland.
These 20% male victims have to see for themselves where they stay and how they can escape the violence.
Among these men there are often fathers who cannot escape violence without abandoning their children.
Experts also agree that the number of unreported cases is likely to be much higher.
So we can assume that the city of Zurich is abandoning at least 20% of its affected citizens in the name of equality!
It is therefore incomprehensible to us how the Zurich city council can further increase this existing inequality under the heading of “equality”.
The women's shelters have long been established and have broad support.
Wouldn't it have been more equal to invest the funding award in this case in building an appropriate infrastructure for men and especially fathers affected by violence?
We at VeV are disappointed that in the city of Zurich, equality is still understood as the promotion of women. Only when equality includes women and men will equality become a reality.
We therefore demand that the city's department for equal opportunities be staffed more evenly immediately. Today, according to the website, 10 women are employed there compared to just one man. This imbalance must be remedied immediately.
We also demand that the city of Zurich immediately think about how and in what form a suitable position can be created for men affected by violence and especially fathers with children.
We know that the city of Zurich has the only specialist center for men affected by violence, but there is still a lack of suitable accommodation options for the men affected.
We at VeV are happy to contribute our specialist knowledge in this context.