12 - Male domestic violence victims’ experience of healthcare services

Summary

Introduction

The Office for National Statistics (2020) reported that an estimated 1.6 million women and 757,000 men had reported domestic abuse in the UK for the 12 month period ending March 2020. While much of the public reporting of domestic abuse highlights the harm caused to women, it overlooks the analysis that one third of reports feature a male victim.

This chapter explores the experiences of men seeking medical attention following domestic abuse, and the way in which these experiences affect their feelings of empowerment to report their perpetrators. The chapter considers how they navigate their experiences within the healthcare services in the UK. It also reflects on whether healthcare professionals are provided with adequate awareness training to identify and support male victims of domestic abuse and whether there has been a failure of service provision, placing male victims back in harm's way. Drijber et al (2013) recognised that there was limited knowledge of supporting male victims, and it can be argued that progress since their research has been similarly limited. ManKind Initiative (2017), a UK male domestic abuse support charity, reported only 78 refuge spaces for male domestic abuse victims across the UK, prompting consideration whether the gaps are being adequately addressed to support victims.

Many men do not report their abuse, due to stigma, shame and fear of being disbelieved (Dobash and Dobash, 2004; Morgan et al, 2014; Myhill, 2017; Hope et al, 2021). This chapter highlights that men can be the victims of domestic abuse, and that they need support provision to be in place, as demand for services is increasing. However, this is not the whole picture, as many men do not report; therefore, statistics will never be, and are failing to provide, an accurate representation of the issue.

Informing this chapter is research examining the experiences of the male victims of female perpetrators when seeking medical attention, and the extent to which victims felt they were provided adequate support and/or encouraged to report their abuse. To access the participants, an online questionnaire was developed with 22 questions and made accessible via ManKind Initiative, a leading domestic abuse charity based in the UK and at the forefront of supporting male victims of domestic abuse.