Are Men Suffering in Silence?

The Scotsman Newspaper 
Published Date: 25 August 2008
By John Forsyth

LAW enforcement agencies across the UK have a definition of domestic abuse. Give or take a comma or two, it refers to "the systematic misuse of power and the exercise of control by one adult person over another within the context of a close personal
relationship. Abuse can be physical, emotional, psychological, sexual or financial".

 

The wording is carefully gender neutral to acknowledge the possibility that both men and women can be perpetrators as well as victims of abuse and that it can develop in same-sex as well as heterosexual relationships.

In Wales they appear to take this neutrality seriously. While in Scotland all funding for domestic abuse services is channelled through organisations that focus on women as victims, the Welsh Assembly has begun support for men who are on the receiving end. This year, £180,000 of its £3.7m domestic abuse grant is earmarked for male victims and funds a national helpline and the first refuge places for men.

The helpline is run by the Dyn Project, developed under the aegis of the Women's Safety Unit in Cardiff, funded by the Cardiff Community Safety Partnership.

Dyn co-ordinator Adam Rees says the shelter of the Women's Safety Unit umbrella has been crucial in giving his work credibility in an area previously the monopoly of women's organisations.

"I wouldn't be here unless I was a champion for the reduction of violence against women," he says. "But it's not either/or. I am also a champion for the reduction of domestic violence against men."

Nevertheless, Rees is clearly adept at walking on eggshells: "I have been hissed at simply for walking into a room where domestic abuse is being discussed, but increasingly I'm getting referrals from domestic abuse co-ordinators across Wales and from police following call-outs to alleged domestic violence incidents saying they're glad for the first time they have somewhere to contact when a male has been the victim."

An evaluation of the Dyn Project pilot carried out by Cardiff University in 2006 indicated that around a quarter of men reporting domestic abuse were in same-sex relationships, while three quarters reported abuse from current or former female partners.

Rees says he is now getting 35 referrals a month through a range of agencies as well as through the helpline. That compares with 180 to 200 referrals where women are reported to be the victims.

"Right now that's the proportion I'd expect," he explains. "Home Office research does indicate that one in four women and one in six men are likely to experience domestic violence at some time in their lives. We're just at the beginning of getting the issue recognised not just by agencies like the police but also by men themselves."

Women are also five or six times more likely to report an incidence of domestic violence, according to the Home Office.

"What is interesting is that we haven't had any men phoning the helpline themselves," Rees says. "It's their mother or sister who contact us to say they're concerned about his violent partner but he won't do anything about it.

"Neither have we been able to persuade any of the male victims to take a case to the Domestic Violence Courts," he continues.

"Whether it's shame or embarrassment, none of them want to be that exposed. What we can do is offer support, risk assessment and safety planning."

The Dyn Project helpline was formally launched by Welsh social justice minister Brian Gibbons in March. He says: "If we say we won't tolerate domestic abuse in Wales we have to recognise it in all its forms. The majority of victims are female, but that doesn't mean the significant proportion who are male should be invisible."

Jan Pickles, director of the Women's Safety Unit, praises the Welsh Assembly for its willingness to engage with the issue: "The Assembly is close at hand, full of bright people and in touch with the issues that affect people in Wales today," she says. "They have engaged with the reality that community safety needs more than policy based on stereotypes. Personal relationships are invariably complex. Most of us have the capacity to be victims or the potential to be perpetrators. And sometimes we can be both in the same relationship. We set about devising an entirely different approach based on risk assessment. That can look at the reality of a situation."

That is different to the approach in Scotland where, despite its "gender neutral" definition of domestic abuse, the Scottish government bases its policies on a gender-based analysis of domestic violence that views a male victim differently from a female victim.

"I'm aware of that," Pickles says. "I've been at meetings where Scottish speakers present that approach. But I've always been motivated by justice, not by politics."

But she acknowledges it would be misleading to say that Wales is speaking with one voice: "There are women in Women's Aid who are uncomfortable and overtly hostile to the concept that women can be perpetrators of violence. It clearly can be true in the cases of violence reported in same-sex female relationships. I have a lot of time for the early work in raising the profile, and consequently the unacceptability, of violence against women.

"But I believe the Women's Safety Unit has brought ideas to a sector that was really tired under their domination and stuck in a siege mentality with a self-fulfilling expectation that nothing would ever get better."

A new idea is the Multi-Agency Risk Assessment Conference (Marac), in which practitioners from different agencies come together to create safety plans for very high-risk victims of domestic abuse. Pickles is the architect of Marac, which has gradually become accepted as a dynamic approach to resolving high-risk relationships.

"Ask most victims of domestic violence what they want and they'll tell you two things – they want the violence to stop and they don't want their partner to go to jail," she says. "The criminal justice focus of present policies doesn't give the victim what he or she wants. The Marac approach works better for perpetrators and victims."

She continues: "After a referral, we identify who is at high risk and have a multi-agency discussion of each case on a frequent basis. Unlike the old approach, we don't wait until the victim is ready to make a complaint.

"We will take him or her on without their consent. We will share information without their consent. I think it's our duty as a state to intervene to assist people at risk of serious violence without necessarily having a prosecution as the final destination."

Marac is in the process of being rolled out across England, Wales and Northern Ireland with a target of reaching a third of local authorities by 2011.

"It's getting a lot of attention all over the world," Pickles says.

"I've got people from Taiwan coming in to see me about Marac next week. I really think it would be odd if Taiwan had moved with the times before Scotland."

In the meantime, Rees is taking things gently with the Dyn Project

"Our aim for the next while is just to get acknowledgment," he says. "If a man was to slap a woman in the street outside my office all hell would break loose. If a woman was to slap a man most passers by would wonder what he did to provoke it. The women's movement was faced with that prejudice 30 years ago and overcame it.

"Some in the movement think we should wait 30 years as some sort of punishment, but I think it will be quicker. Most people aren't comfortable with double standards."