COMPLAINT OF CCFISRAEL.

ORG AND ISRAELI MENS RIGHTS ORGANIZATION RE: INCITMENT TO HATRED BY RUTH HALPERIN KADDARI

December 22, 2011 To The Honorable Ms. Rashida Manjoo THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, OFFICE OF THE HIGH COMMISSIONER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, OHCHR-UNOG, 1211 GENEVA 10, SWITZERLAND Fax: + 41-22-917-9006, e-mail: urgent-action@ohchr.org Re: Removal of Ruth Halperin Kaddari (ISRAEL) from UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women

Dear Ms. Manjoo, and members of the CEDAW Committee, The mens rights organizations in Israel wish to bring to your attention outrageous conduct of one of the members of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, Dr. Ruth Halperin-Kaddari. While this member enjoys prestige for work to eliminate discrimination against women internationally, not much is known outside Israel that this member is not working to eliminate discrimination, rather she is devoted to a ruthless crusade to emasculate the male gender in Israel, ridicule men, perpetuate sex based stereotypes, disengage fathers from their children, reduce fathers to a role of visitors one hour a week, educate social workers how to torment fathers seeking access to their children, supply social workers tools and language that can be used to reduce or minimize father-child access, and in particular she is one of the most vocal opponents of joint custody and parental equality. She actively advocates using the children to extort money from fathers. These are not the values of CEDAW. In fact, Ms. Halperin-Kaddari uses the plentiful resources of an academic Institution, Rackman Center, to launch libelous and hate filled campaigns against men, with the ultimate goal of perpetuating the statutory and almost automatic tender years presumption (Section 25, Guardian and Capacity Law), which gives women automatic custody. In fact Ms. Halperin-Kaddari stated that automatic custody to women should be extended from the age of 6 until the age of 18. Ms. Halperin-Kaddari appears on television and states that men dont really want to see their children, and that they can easily forget their own children. She has no 1

problems calling women to withhold visitations as bargaining chips to get higher child support, and she indeed admits that women should use children to extort money from their fathers. She associates herself with other women who advocate that marriage is oppressive to women, and that women should break up marriages, to empower themselves and enjoy self fulfillment as single moms with children relying on the former spouses income and assets. At this point, she expects women to sit at home and simply collect child support from men. If that is not enough, Ms. Halperin-Kaddari advocates the idea that children belong with the physical and mental primary caretaker. She expresses views in every possible forum that Courts should delve into mundane questions such as who cooked for the children, or who did the laundry, regardless of the question of who brought the money for the cooking or the laundry machine. This perpetuates stereotypes of women as stay-at-home homemakers, and men as work mules, and these are the stereotypes she expects judges at family court to obsess about. These days in Israel, she introduces ideas, never recognized in any sane country, that children belong with the mental caretaker, based on theories that children mentally connect to mothers and not fathers. Ms. Halperin-Kaddari incites hatred among the Israeli public. Certainly such a person with such primitive ideation should not be telling women in Kenya or Morocco how to empower themselves via creation of parental alienation, and plying children up for financial extortion. In fact, as a member of the Committee in charge of elimination of stereotypes and full equality, her actions and personal views are directly in contrast with the CEDAW convention and all other United Nations human rights treaties, U.N. material, model practices and cultural norms, all of them support joint custody and equal, maximized access. Ms. Halperin-Kaddari has crossed the line between elimination of discrimination against women, and waging a war to eliminate men altogether. One can understand a zealous fight in a jurisdiction where women are oppressed or being discriminated against. That is not the case in Israel, despite the contrived efforts of Ms. Halperin-Kaddari to present Israel as an oppressive country for women. The facts are that Israel is a sua generis pro-women jurisdiction like no other : (a) In custody women get the benefit of an ancient presumption of tender years up to the age of 6. (b) De facto, women always get interim custody of all children. 2

(c) We are not aware of one case where interim custody was awarded to both parents. (d) Men have no tights to visitations. A social worker is appointed to examine the father (much like a personal criminal probation officer), and the father must beg the social worker for the grace of being allowed some access with the children. (e) A quarter of men in divorce get not more than one hour a week with children in supervised contact centers, which are operated at security levels resembling jails. (f) Women have the power to compel the men to see the children in contact centers solely by refusing visitations, and telling the social worker that they do not communicate well with the former spouse. (g) Women are exempt from paying child support, even if finally custody shifts to the father. (h) Womens income is ignored for purposes of calculating child support. It is purely a fathers duty. (i) Child support awards against fathers are entirely garnishable, leaving no self support reserve to men. (j) By Attorney General Guideline 2.5, women are exempt from false domestic violence complaint. Halperin-Kaddaris own clinic encourages women to file false DV complaints. (k) Because of the doctrine of imputed income, child support awards against men have no correlation to actual disposable income. Some men must pay 80%, 100% and even 200% and 250% of their income as child support... (l) Police does not register complaints of men against women for provocation and actual assaults. (m) Family Courts do not conduct trials. A custody judgment can be issued ex parte without evidence, solely when a Judge fees like it (See J. Tova Sivan, Ramat Gan family Court). (n) Radical feminists who admit to vigorously hating men, and wishing to revenge against men, are routinely appointed as family court judges (Rivka Mekayes, Tamar Snunit Forer, Varda Ben Shahar, Anat Elfasi, Tzila Tzfat, Tzila Kenan, Alisa Miller, Tova Sivan, and the list goes on). (o) The States Legal aid is Israel gives women free legal services without examining income of the women at all. Conversely, men without financial wherewithal are denied legal aid services, either by laconic denials, false claims that the paperwork was lost, false claims of lack of merit, and a myriad of other excuses. (p) Women almost always collect attorney fees in family court ($2,000 for the custody, $2,000 for the child support, and much more for equitable distributions). Because women always win in family courts, men must either accept every extortionist demand of the woman, or pay $10,000 up to $165,000 in legal fees, and then get slapped with Court fees. 3

(q) Woman can file libel and invasion of privacy claims against their own spouses and win $15,000 per insult. No man has ever been successful on same. (r) Gag orders prevent men from exposing corruption and tell their stories. (s) At Rabbinical courts women can sue and recover compensation for a marriage deed (Ktuba), even though the act is symbolic. (t) At Rabbinical court, women can prevent joint marital property from being distributed by getting exclusive occupancy until the smallest child is 18. (u) Women can get ex parte orders simply for the asking. (v) Women can enjoin their former spouses right to exit Israel for decades (n exeat injunctions). (w) Any application benefitting women is instantly decided,. When a man makes a motion benefitting him, the judges would procrastinate for several months, if not more. (x) Applications to summon witnesses is made by women are automatically granted. If made by men, they are denied with sanctions. (y) The Parliament itself has a Committee for the Advancement of the Status of Women, which is more or less the alter ego of Ruth Halperin Kaddari. Every Bill to amend laws to hurt and damage men, which is drafted at Halperin Kaddaris center, is immediately passed on the Parliament (Knesset) for deliberations in the presence of powerful women organizations, heavily funded by the State, and no mens rights organizations are invited. (z) Almost half of suicides in Israel are committed by divorced fathers (200 out of 400). Only 5 divorced women commit suicide. Given this climate of discrimination against men, it is hard to understand what elimination of discrimination against women, Halperin-Kaddari is fighting for, when the women she represents already have every conceivable preferential treatment at courts, welfare service, police and the parliament. Halperin-Kaddari is simply inciting for hatred of men, and she does so relentlessly, and heartlessly. Such a woman-warrior cannot genuinely serve as an example as to how the fight to eliminate discrimination against women should look like. It should not be a scortched earth campaign, coupled with almost daily hate propaganda, and elevation of parental alienation to a form of cherished feministic ritual. In fact, CEDAW only authorizes elimination of discrimination to bring women to levels at par with men. Israel is a rare example, where the fight to equalize women has reached a point where men are being tormented arrested, treated cruelly and unfairly, well beyond the spirit and letter of CEDAW. The question is, when does this male hating and war mongering about to end? Isnt it enough to simply reach 4

the point of equality and equal opportunities, or should CEDAW be used as a platform to spread radical feminist ideas? Ms. Halperin Kaddari certainly does not share the values of CEDAW. She is a feminist warrior in a land where all male targets were conquered, yet she continues relentlessly in her actions, while she enjoys the prestige as a UN expert, and that prestige serves her to justify the continuation of her brutal onslaught against Israeli men and children. Wherefore, CEDAW members are kindly requested to terminate the appointment of Ms. Ruth Halperin Kaddari, for the sake of tens of thousands fatherless Israeli children, who are Halperin-Kaddari counts as victories. Alternatively, a rapporteur is more than welcome in Israel to hear and report from field. Respectfully, The Coalition for Children & Family (Israel)