MALE VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE Informing Social ... - Amen

it is understandable why the rates of reporting of domestic violence by male victims is
so low, only a percentage of its real occurrence. As one of the men in the focus group
said, “we only want people to believe us, what’s the point in telling someone your wife
is beating you, if their not going to believe me.”
From my reading of the literature I was shocked to find that only a small proportion of
the material discussed male victims and even less discussed the types of abuse these
men suffered. My findings from the focus group showed that the main types of abuse
suffered by men are physical abuse and emotional/ psychological abuse, which
coincided with the literature.
Quite significantly, a conclusion of the research showed that the area of male victims of
domestic violence seems to be forgotten about by the literary world. An even more
significant deduction from this dissertation arose when I tried to locate books relating to
the topic of research in the University library and found that very few were present,
compared to rows of domestic violence material in relation to female victims. Not very
gender neutral for a issue that affects both men and women.
Services available to male victims of domestic violence in Ireland amount to one
voluntary service, Amen. The need for more services was highlighted by my three
hundred mile round trip to Amen in Navan from Cork, to carry out a focus group.
There is a need for more community based services through out the country, no one
should have to travel the distance I travelled to attend a support group. I would estimate
that the Amen support group is only available to about twenty percent of the country in
relation to the distance men would have to travel. Eighty percent, again only an
estimate, are restricted by distance and can only use the twenty-four hour help line
provided by Amen. This is a very valuable part of the Amen service, but there is no
comparison to being able to attend a support group and talk with other victims.
The law for victims of domestic violence stems from the gender neutral ‘Domestic
Violence Act 1996’. In practice the justice system only provides a lip service to this
gender-neutral process and requires a higher standard of proof from male victims of
domestic violence. Findings from the focus group revealed that male victims find it
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