Male victims 'are ignored' by most domestic abuse organisations

The Opinion piece in the Guernsey Press of 25 November opined that '... the public awareness gained from seeing men of all shapes and sizes grappling to negotiate cobbles in ill-fitting nine-inch heels will have been just as valuable – because, as so often happens in small communities, certain issues can be difficult to discuss and tackle.' It seems as though the Press has hit the nail on the head. Unfortunately, they seem to be hammering it into the wrong piece of wood.

There are many reputable studies (http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm lists pages and pages of such studies) that suggest, among other things, that domestic abuse is suffered by as many men as women and is perpetrated by as many women as men. And yet all the effort, support and funding is directed solely at women.

The 'assistance' available to men is no more than an attempt to avoid being labelled sexist. Often the claim to help both genders is not backed up by the data of who receives the help. The site parity-uk.org also presents many statistics sourced from UK Home Office studies that show similar findings.

The issue of domestic violence is an impossible one to accurately quantify, particularly on a gender basis. It is widely acknowledged that male victims of abuse are less likely to report or act on the abuse, making reliable statistics very difficult to compile. Furthermore, it is entirely possible that abuse suffered by men is likely to be of a different sort to that suffered by women, so it could be argued that any comparison would be like comparing apples and pears. Theresa May is currently pushing through a law to criminalise emotional and financial abuse, so theoretically the 'apples and pears' argument is diminished as the definition of domestic abuse widens in line with society's acknowledgement that no abuse is acceptable.

As this happens and the social conscience begins to recognise all forms of abuse, it becomes increasingly accepted that abuse affects men as much as it affects women. However, I would encourage readers to Google 'social experiment domestic abuse' to see the extent to which attitudes still need to change.

While any activity to shine a light on domestic abuse can be commended, it must be understood that the assistance available to women is much greater, relative to the levels of abuse suffered, than that available to men. There is a Women's Refuge, but no equivalent assistance for men (whether in the form of funding or otherwise).

The fact that men are less likely to report domestic abuse is surely proof that a greater share of funds must be focused on the male gender, given that they need to be encouraged just to take the first step to report, or possibly even to recognise, abusive behaviour.

Given that abuse is likely 50/50, it seems that someone needs to let Safer know. Their Facebook page is plastered with examples from around the world, scoured from the internet, of men abusing women. It seems as though any references to women abusing men, which are just as easy to find, have been wilfully ignored.

The Home Office definition of a domestic violence incident is: 'Any incident or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse (psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional) between adults who are or have been intimate partners or are family members, regardless of gender or sexuality.'

And yet it seems that all abuse organisations are staffed by women who are intent only on focusing on the half of the problem which appeals to them. There have also been papers written (e.g. Gelles, R.J. 'Can one wear two hats?') that laments the absence of objectivity among such female staff to so much as acknowledge female-perpetrated abuse.

The myth that all domestic abuse is perpetrated by men against women needs to end. And this brings me back to Safer once again.

The very title of the fundraiser, Walk a Mile in Her Shoes, strongly implies that only women suffer abuse and that men need to become more aware of that 'fact'. It is sexist to suggest that this is the case and I would assert that Safer is falling into the stereotype behaviour as described by Gelles.

Even more worrying in my mind is the significant number of men who I have met who have claimed, and can prove, that their partners have used the organisation to make baseless allegations that can then be used against them in childcare or divorce proceedings, essentially for financial gain.

The Opinion article is right. It is important to expose 'these issues', which can so easily be ignored. Social attitudes most certainly do need to change.

But supporting an organisation that seems to support only 50% of the victims and, worse still, is a conduit for one half of the population to build a history of false allegations against the other half, therefore perpetuating the myth and covering up as much abuse as it exposes, is not a satisfactory way of resolving that problem.

There should be a zero-tolerance approach to any form of abuse and this cannot be the case while there is such a selective tolerance of the same.

Despite all the warm words of encouragement (read: 'hot air') spouted by so many agencies, organisations and States departments, it is clear to me that they are just trying to give the right impression to cover their own backs. The reality of what they do leaves a lot to be desired. In many cases, they do not represent the solution; they represent and perpetuate the problem.

Name and address withheld.

Editor's footnote: Dr Maggie Costen, chair of Safer LBG, responds: 'Thank you for giving Safer LBG the opportunity to respond to the letter sent in to the Guernsey Press. I wholeheartedly agree with the letter's author that domestic abuse and violence are unacceptable, regardless of whether the victim is male or female. Every person has the right to live a life free from violence, fear and control.

Safer very much works from a needs-led and evidence-based position rather than from an ideological one, and I strongly refute the claim that the charity only supports women experiencing domestic abuse. Due to the high level of demand for our service and funding constraints, Safer's Independent Domestic Violence Advisory (IDVA) Service currently only supports high-risk victims of abuse that meet the threshold to be discussed at the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conferences (MARAC). Around three quarters of these cases are referred to us by the police, having been assessed as high-risk at the scene of the incident. The rest are referred via the MARAC by agencies such as Children's Services, the Probation Service, health visitors or the Housing Department. Risk is assessed by all agencies using a checklist that was developed by the Association of Chief Police Officers based on the findings of many domestic homicide and serious case reviews. Around 6% of all high-risk cases that reach the threshold for MARAC locally are men. The IDVA Service offers these individuals the same degree of support as their female counterparts, though as the letter's author has rightly pointed out, their needs are often different.

Every caller to our telephone helpline who discloses that they are experiencing domestic abuse is also risk assessed and offered support through the IDVA Service if they reach the required risk threshold regardless of their gender. Those that are not high risk are referred to either the Women's Refuge if they are female or Victim Support if they are male.

Safer took on the management of the Guernsey Women's Refuge in May this year and will be working closely with the States of Guernsey Domestic Abuse Strategy Advisory Group and the Housing Department over the next few years to see if additional refuge provision can be put in place for specific groups that cannot currently be accommodated. In recent months, data-collection processes have been put in place in order to capture the level and type of unmet need – this will include enquiries from male victims as well as other groups that cannot be housed in the current premises.

The current set-up cannot easily support disabled people, men, women with complex needs such as drug and alcohol addictions or severe mental health issues, large families and women with older male children. These groups cannot be accommodated due to the building's size, layout and communal facilities.

Historically, men have not been accommodated because a need had not been identified and because accommodation-based support services for victims are best provided separately for women and for men (both for safety reasons and because of their differing needs). As the lease on the refuge property is due to expire in the next few years, Safer will be working with the States to find suitable alternative premises that will hopefully be able to accommodate many of these groups.

Despite the fact that we can only currently house women and children within our communal accommodation, staff within the refuge will always try to assist male callers who cannot be accommodated by signposting them to alternative sources of support.

The author of the letter quotes social scientist Richard Gelles who 'laments the absence of objectivity among female staff to so much as acknowledge female-perpetrated abuse.' Safer recruits staff within the IDVA service on the basis of ability and experience rather than gender and we would welcome applications from men to join our staff team. All Safer's front-line IDVA staff have attended the national training program and take the safety and wellbeing of their male service users extremely seriously. I anticipate that they would find the implication that they lack objectivity rather offensive.

We also feel that the letter's author's suggestion that Safer is merely paying lip service to male victims in order to avoid being labelled as sexist could actually be quite damaging to male victims, as it may discourage them from engaging with our IDVA Service staff, believing that they will not be taken seriously. The IDVA Service's performance is measured against the National IDVA Service dataset and it compares extremely well against this benchmark. Staff have also received very positive feedback from many of the men they have supported.

Interestingly, Richard Gelles, the social scientist quoted in the letter, has expressed concern that men's rights group members and some scholars have used his research in order to maintain that there are as many male victims of domestic violence as female. He views this as a distortion of his research data when used as a comparative measure of male and female domestic victimisation. He states: 'one piece of statistical evidence (that women and men hit one another in roughly equal numbers) is hauled out from my 1985 research – and distorted – to "prove" the position on violence against men. However, the critical rate of injury and homicide statistics provided in that same research are often eliminated altogether, or reduced to a parenthetical statement saying that "men typically do more damage." The statement that men and women hit one another in roughly equal numbers is true, however, it cannot be made in a vacuum without the qualifiers that a) women are seriously injured at seven times the rate of men and b) that women are killed by partners at more than two times the rate of men.'

He adds, '(W)hen we look at injuries resulting from violence involving male and female partners, it is categorically false to imply that there are the same number of "battered" men as there are battered women. Research shows that nearly 90% of battering victims are women and only about 10% are men… (T)here are very few women who stalk male partners or kill them and then their children in a cataclysmic act of familicide. The most brutal, terrorising and continuing pattern of harmful intimate violence is carried out primarily by men.'

The letter's author is also critical of Safer's Facebook page stating that it is 'plastered with examples from around the world, scoured from the internet, of men abusing women.' The Facebook page is updated on a daily basis with any articles relating to domestic abuse that are reported in the national and international news. If the incidents reported in the news and subsequently posted on our Facebook page predominantly depict male perpetrators and female victims, this is because it is the daily reality reported in the news. Empirical evidence demonstrates that substantially more women are murdered or seriously injured than men as a result of domestic abuse: nationally, 51% of female homicide victims aged 16 or over were killed by a current or former partner compared with 5% of male victims being killed by a current or former partner (Office for National Statistics, Focus on: Violent Crime and Sexual Offences, 2011/12); locally, all domestic homicide victims in the last 14 years have been female and the perpetrators of these homicides have been male.

I absolutely do not wish to underplay the misery and suffering that many men experience at the hands of their partners, but women are disproportionately affected by domestic abuse, being far more likely to be repeat victims and experience greater levels of injury or death. The reality is that many women living in abusive relationships are routinely raped on a weekly basis; many are stalked and harassed for years after leaving a violent relationship, living in the constant fear that they and their children may be tracked down and murdered. This simply isn't the reality for the vast majority of male victims. I firmly believe that all victims of abuse should be offered safety and support, but this does not mean that the differences between men and women's use of violence and their experiences of victimisation should be ignored.

No woman, man or child deserves to be a victim of domestic violence, coercive control or of any other type of violence or abuse. Safer supports the vision of the Domestic Abuse Strategy that there should be zero tolerance in relation to any form of domestic abuse and we would welcome the opportunity to discuss the work of our services and the needs of male victims with the author of this letter.'