A SUPPORT SERVICE for male victims of domestic abuse has reported an 80 per cent increase in the number of people contacting their services after suffering abuse.
Amen, which operates a helpline and counselling service for men, said yesterday 3,644 people had contacted their service last year, up from 2,028 in 2008. A quarter of clients (26 per cent) who suffered abuse from their partner were physically abused, with victims reporting being stabbed, burnt by cigarettes and having their hair pulled out.
More than one-third of people (35 per cent) suffered verbal abuse and 38 per cent suffered psychological abuse, according to the first annual report published by Amen.
Men are often attacked when they are most vulnerable, for example when they are asleep, says the report, which includes a quote from a victim of abuse called Patrick.
“I felt heavy blows to my head, still sleepy and dazed I partly woke up to see her standing over me with a wooden meat tenderizer which had a metal studded head on it. When she finished hitting me I saw a small steak knife in her hand. She stuck it in the thick duvet cover. I felt a sharp pain in my naval area,” said Patrick.
Typical forms of verbal or psychological abuse faced by men include: not allowing them to see family/friends; hiding their car keys, listening to their phone calls, accusing them of having affairs and publicly humiliating them, says the report.
Niamh McGrath, manager of Amen, said demand for its services increased dramatically last year following its second annual awareness campaign highlighting the problem of domestic abuse suffered by men.
She said 2,124 calls were received by the helpline in 2009 and 115 one-to-one meetings were held with victims. Amen support staff accompanied men to court hearings on 37 occasions in 2009 and 65 new members joined the organisation’s group support meetings, she added.
Ms McGrath said funding was a constant problem for the group, which saw 1,274 unanswered calls to its helpline in 2009 because they were made after 5pm in the evening or at weekends when its phone line is unmanned. She said there was also a need for a male refuge to be set up in the Republic.
Almost half of the clients who contact Amen are from the Dublin northeast region. However, the organisation has taken calls from all over the State.
Declan Keaveney, who was Amen’s first client back in the mid-1990s and is now a a board member of the support group, said one of the biggest challenges facing men suffering domestic abuse was for them to prove they were the victims and to ensure the children in a relationship were okay.
He said the whole judicial system needed to be re-jigged to ensure fathers’ rights were better protected.
Case study: she came up behind with a knife and stabbed me
“I AM MARRIED 15 years and the abuse started straight away, even on the honeymoon when we got into a major row. She kicked the bejesus out of me. Her own father had suffered similar abuse so there was a history of physical abuse in the family.
When she fell pregnant with our first child it got worse, almost unbearable. She accused me of having affairs, fought over money and nothing I could do was good enough. She hit me and smacked my son.
I'm not a small bloke and so I thought people wouldn't believe me if I told them. I didn't tell friends because I was just too embarrassed.
After each incident, I just felt that it was probably the last and it wouldn't happen again.
She attended a psychiatrist and began taking medication. I asked the psychiatrist for help but nothing was done for me. I just stopped talking to her to try to stop the fights.
We did go to Accord but that didn't work. It had to be her way or no way. She was always ringing the Garda alleging that I was abusing her when the opposite was true. I never hit her. In the end I had to speak to the local Garda superintendent, who was supportive and told me to go to Amen.
Then, last October she came up behind me with a knife and stabbed me. I felt something stuck in behind my ears. She later accused me of self-harm to the Garda and now I can only see my kids under supervision. I'm now fighting for access to my kids.
For anyone suffering similar abuse I just want to let them know they should speak to Amen. This organisation saved my life."