HOW CAN EQUALITY AND HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION CONTINUE TO IGNORE MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

Last week, the Equalities and Human Rights Commission launched its Map of Gaps (link) campaign, aimed at naming and shaming councils who do not provide adequate services for women who are victims of domestic violence. It is part of the End Violence Against Women (EVAW) who believe that 100 council's are at risk of being found guilty.

At the same time last week, the Ministry of Justice published figures (link, link) that showed the numbers of women being arrested for violence had increased by 22% since 2004. This was covered on the site with regard to the correlation with domestic violence (link).

The key question is that with 40% of victims of domestic violence and domestic abuse being men (link), alongside an increase in violent women, why has the Equalities and Human Rights Commission not produced a similar campaign for male victims?

Why, if the Commission truly believes in equality, is it then ignoring people who make up 40% of the domestic violence victim population?

Comments

[John Kimble]

That document on the mankind site is fantastic. So many really useful (and really reliable) stats.

Thanks

here it is for anyone who missed it:

http://www.mankind.org.uk/PDFs/Key%20Statistics%20Nov%2008.pdf

[Nigel]

Yes indeed John. The Dewar research site also has some exellent downloads analysing government statistics

http://www.dewar4research.org/

[Nigel]

There is actually a further issue here in that one reason that funding is being shifted to statutary services is that many of the voluntary sector agencies don't actually meet women's needs. They all too frequently spend the resources given on campaigning. So councils and government agencies have to provide the actual support services themselves! In effect they pay twice for the same services. This is why many are losing patience and stopping funding or insisting on service provision through tighter contracts.