Domestic abuse organisation is failing to be 'gender neutral'

There are numerous studies and statistics on the subject of domestic abuse – all with their own bias, caveats and limitations – and misinterpretation and 'cherry picking' is rife. It is a notoriously difficult area to quantify, with much of the abuse happening behind closed doors, with men being much less inclined to report abuse and much less likely to report abuse to the police, causing an unknown level of bias in reported figures. Further bias can be witnessed on a macro scale – for example, recent cuts to legal aid provision in the UK, where cases of domestic abuse were ring-fenced from those cuts, have coincided with an astronomic rise in reported abuse by women which is quite unlikely to be genuine. Likewise in America, with the introduction of VAWA and TitleIX, due process has been removed and accusations of abuse have rocketed as the easiest way, among other things, to 'win' a divorce. Society in general is focused on believing that women are the victims and men are the aggressors. If Safer were serious about domestic abuse, they would make efforts to expose and correct this bias.

The best way to assess just how 'gender neutral' Safer is would be to research the topic yourself. Make an unbiased assessment of how robust or biased each study or statistic is – there is a wealth of information online – and then consider how Safer portray it. If they are interested in gender-neutral domestic abuse issues, you would expect them to approach these statistics and studies in an objective manner. A quick flick through their Facebook page reveals that they do not, although they are considerably better than they used to be. They display a tendency to present deeply-flawed studies as 'gospel' where it fits with a 'man perpetrator, woman victim' narrative and a tendency to attempt to discredit or downplay studies or statistics that might support the opposite view. For example, there are numerous studies, such as PASK – an analysis of 1,700 peer-reviewed studies which demonstrates that men account for the majority of reciprocal domestic abuse victims, but you will not find any of these numerous articles on the Safer Facebook page. What you will find are numerous articles that paint the male as the perpetrator (disproportionately to the incidence), articles that show anger when men are found innocent by a jury or, as an example, this article written for a feminist news site in Australia by a journalist with a known bias entitled 'No, women aren't as likely to commit violence as men – Not only is there no data that supports such a claim – a common cry in online comments sections – but the data that we do have proves the exact opposite.'

This article is predicated on totally unverifiable statistics that allegedly come from a single state of Australia and do not even claim to relate to domestic abuse. Many of the statistics quoted in this article can be easily and empirically questioned, but the veracity of the numbers is irrelevant – it is the sentiment of the article and the fact that Safer feels it is somehow relevant to real-life domestic abuse in Guernsey that is most telling.

Forgetting the wilful misinterpretation of statistics in the article, consider that the human rights commissioner Gillian Triggs will allow the Australian Bureau of Statistics to discriminate against hiring men for an eight-month survey on violence on the assumption they are more likely to commit domestic violence. This is the Australian human rights commissioner, circumventing discrimination laws in order to influence the outcome of a study to give the continued perception that 'women good. Man bad'. It could be argued that all Australian government domestic abuse statistics should be taken with a pinch of salt given this endemic state attitude.

What Safer will actively promote are studies such as the 'Child First' study which supports the narrative that fathers are a danger to their children and contact should be limited.

This study was conducted by Women's Aid (again, hardly gender neutral) as part of their 'nineteen child homicides' report and can be empirically shown to be biased. Despite the fact that filicide is as likely from the mother as the father (and in the US is recorded as more likely to be maternal), they managed to select a target group for the study that was compiled entirely of paternal filicide cases. It is clear that they have an interest in promoting all women's interests at the cost of the access rights of the father and have an incentive to promote the 'man bad, woman good' narrative irrespective of the facts.

The public need to understand that the domestic abuse industry is exactly that: an industry. A multimillion-pound industry in the UK alone. And some people are profiting from this industry. They have a vested interest in creating a well-defined victim group and preying on society's readiness to assume that the woman is the de facto victim. Safer is funded by the States using public money with little to no accountability. Domestic abuse has for too long been a political football, used by politicians to give them what they believe (in their ignorance) is a failsafe way to impress the electorate. It is not the preserve of an elite to determine its shape or to influence policies or laws that remove due process for men under cries of 'misogynist' to voices of opposition.

I am not wanting to detract from the real work that Safer does – victims of domestic abuse should be provided with support, undoubtedly. But it should not be gendered. Safer should be beyond reproach on this point, demonstrably so, and they are not. This would matter less if it was just about a lack of provision for men, but it is more than that. While a confidential counselling service to victims of domestic abuse is to be encouraged as a necessity, and details of those sessions should remain private and confidential, it should be remembered that Safer might discuss these confidential notes at MARAC (Multi Agency Risk Assessment meetings that include the police and the safeguarders) and that this committee can have a direct influence on whether a parent is allowed access to their children. At this point it ceases to be a 'confidential counselling session' and becomes a case of taking one person's word above (and in the complete absence of) another's, and using that word against them – and against their children. And what one person says (generally a woman, given the lack of similar access for men) can be used against the father and the father is unable to find out what accusations have been levelled against him (and potentially discussed at MARAC) despite the data protection law apparently being quite clear in this regard. It should also be remembered that in some cases – although we shall never know exactly how many – the tales of domestic abuse are entirely false and designed to exert control or to influence the outcome of a divorce.

I look forward to the day when Guernsey has a domestic abuse strategy that simply tries to prevent abuse and that helps victims of abuse. In my opinion we currently fall woefully short of this standard.

NAME AND ADDRESS WITHHELD

Editor's footnote: Maggie Costen, chair, Safer LBG, and Elis Bebb, director, Safer LBG replies:

It's always disappointing when we receive negative feedback, but as an organisation that is committed to continual improvement, we look at any complaints seriously and review our practices in those areas to ensure the best service possible is provided. It is always difficult to respond to an individual's concerns, pertinent to a particular case, through the pages of the paper therefore if your correspondent would like to discuss this personally we would be pleased to arrange a meeting.

I note, however, that your correspondent has a few inaccuracies that I'd like to correct. Safer provides services to both men and women. Indeed the opening film at the recent fundraiser wasn't about the experience of the Women's Refuge, the storylines were based on the very real experiences of our service users, some of which were changed slightly or amalgamated to protect their identity. One story being related by a male victim and one by a boy shows the breadth of issues we deal with. The film can be viewed on our website at www.safer.gg, which also gives examples of the sort of assistance that we provide to male and female victims in Guernsey in order to help them escape abusive relationships.

At present, the Guernsey Women's Refuge is for women only, however we also assist male victims in securing safe accommodation, and we are currently exploring other options for future refuge provision which would include spaces for male victims.

Domestic abuse is heavily under-reported by both men and women and we, along with the States of Guernsey and the Guernsey Police, have an objective to improve the reporting rates. In 2013/14 in the UK, on average high-risk victims lived with domestic abuse for 2.6 years before getting help (ManKind Initiative). No one should suffer domestic abuse and Safer is available locally to support any victim regardless of gender, age, disability, nationality, religion or any other characteristic.

Only by survivors reporting these crimes, or by victims seeking help, are we likely to see the full extent of domestic abuse on island. The correspondent, however, claims that the increase in reporting of domestic abuse in the UK 'is quite unlikely to be genuine' despite providing no evidence to support this claim. He appears to imply that the increases in reporting are due to women fabricating incidents of domestic violence in order to provide favourable grounds for a divorce settlement, to gain custody of children or to block child contact with men in the Family Courts. Unfounded and inflammatory statements such as this are in themselves concerning as they are very likely to stop victims from coming forward to seek help.

It's also important to note that domestic abuse is an asymmetric crime. Although low-level incidents may be more equal across the genders, those who are at high risk of serious harm or death are far more likely to be women than men. In the UK, 95% of those victims assessed as being at high risk in 2015 were women; in Guernsey in the same year, this figure was 98%. There has been little variation in this gender ratio locally since 2009, the average percentage of high-risk male victims who sought support over the last seven years being 7%.

This does not diminish the fact that every individual experiencing domestic abuse deserves support, and at Safer, we strive to make sure that every person who seeks support from us receives a quality service regardless of their gender. When Elis Bebb took on the responsibility of being a director of Safer, it was a male victim of domestic abuse who told him that Safer had been 'angels at my doorstep' during the very difficult period of abuse he suffered.

Safer uses social media as a communication tool and will frequently repost articles that followers of our social media may find interesting. As a greater number of women are murdered or seriously injured as a result of domestic abuse, it's unsurprising that the largest number of surveys and media articles would focus on women, but all the posts we make on our social media sites are from reputable sources, though we cannot verify all the details of each survey as the correspondent suggests we should. Our resources simply wouldn't stretch to verifying international studies and I'm sure that your readers will agree that our resources are best placed to deal with the local victims of domestic abuse, not as an international arbiter of studies.

One further point of correction, I'd like to advise your correspondent that Safer is only part-funded by the States of Guernsey. We strive annually to meet the costs of running the Guernsey Women's Refuge as well as our other services. We currently employ three independent domestic violence advisors and one children and young persons domestic violence advisor, but the States of Guernsey only fund one and a half of these posts. All our services are very busy and we are keen to ensure that outcomes of the services mean improvements to the lives and safety of victims of domestic abuse and their children.

Domestic abuse is a gendered crime, the vast majority of cases reported are to females. Since the year 2000 in the islands, three out of four murders and one out of three manslaughter cases have been domestic abuse-related. All victims were female, one being a child of 21 months.

We would reiterate that if your correspondent would like to contact us on 721999 we would be happy to arrange to meet him. If any of your readers think that they might be in an abusive relationship, Safer is here to help and they can call 721999 to speak to someone or visit our website www.safer.gg for further information.