MESSAGE IS GETTING THROUGH TO COUNCILS ON HELPING MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC ABUSE

Thank you to readers for sending through the stories in the Telegraph (link) and Observer (link) about UK council's using the Gender Equality Duty (link) to try to achieve refuge provision for male victims in their communities.

The complaints by Women's Aid on funding problems because they have to include men for the first time may seem rich to some but they make an important point.

Firstly, female victims do need support so the issue is that is it right to ask an organisation and its refuges to take in men or set up male services?

I would think not, it is better to have organisations in local communities specifically geared to helping men. This could include support and advice from current refuge providers such as Women's Aid but there is more to it than just putting a roof over a man's head, especially if children are involved. There has to be special care aimed at male victims who suffer additionally from the social unacceptance and lack of recognition.

In addition, council's need to make sure they provide specific informational campaigns for men and have specialist training in helping male victims.

As council's have neglected male victims in their communities for decades, it is a bit of sledgehammer to crack a nut to force a women's charity down this path. It would be better if the council's took a step back and assessed what they need to do to specifically meet the needs of male victims, either setting up their own organisations, asking housing association's to set up specific refuges for men (some already do) or asking other charities/organisations that already help male victims.

There is also a risk of igniting a  'gender war' (yes I know there is one already) by trying to take away services for female victims and giving them to male victims. No reasonable man wants to see services cut for women, what we need is extra funding and attention on helping male victims, who after all, account for 40% of the victims in the UK.

Setting this aside though, at least things are changing even if it still seems glacial.        

Comments

[Tom]

Surely it would be more efficient to share existing facilities, and get over our knuckle-dragging desires to sex segregate.

[Nigel]

I think the most important thing is that Councils and the Home Office are continually put under scrutiny. Simply asking your council or local police what they are doing for male victims will help. You can call this a "freedom of information" request. The equality duty requires public bodies to base decisions on data. One big problem is that the information that is available (see Dewar Research) is often not brought to the attention of councils for the fairly obvious reason that the first people asked for info are the big national organsiations(Womensaid and Refuge) who understandably only give info supporting their cause. Changes in this report reflect that those councils do recognise the gap but obviously are not sure who could fill it. Personally I hope Mankind will get wider support to provide a "voice" and a means to get information into Town Halls across England. As a final point a number of the small services that exist have actually come out of small local "women's" charities that have recognised the need through their work over the years.

[John Kimble]

I think this is excellent news. Note how the feminist government Minister states this is an unintended consequnce of the gender equalitty duty.

What nonsense - the whole point of such legislation should be to protesct vulnerable people who are currently being failed b governemtn becasue of their gender. I can't relaly think fo a better example of a group who should benefit from the legislation.

Yes there is a gender war, but the fact is this was started when feminists infiltrated groups such as Women's Aid and hijacked the issue of domestic violence for political purposes.

There is no reason why we can't have an organisations dedicated to domestic violence victims of all genders - there really isn't much difference between male and female victims.

In fact it makes so much sense - just image a small remote town with one shelter - if it was dedicated solely to one gender it would be half empty most of the times - opening it to all victims means it would be fully utilised and also mean victims have to travel shorter distances.

There is no quesiton that it would make sense for Women's Aid to help men inprinciple. They are clearly competent and capable. the problem is hat they really don't even liek to acknowledge the existence of male victims in a significant numbers as it completely debunks a whole host of feminist myths.

Thehate males so much that mayn branches expel boys from shleter on their 13th birthday.

Thus the reason they should not be foreced help men has nothing to do with an practical issue - the fact is that many of the nastier branches of Women's Aid would clearly offer substandard services to such victims out of spite and because of their misandric agenda.

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