Women launch campaign for male domestic abuse victims

Alison Waugh, from Morningside, and Fife woman Jackie Walls have submitted a petition to the Scottish Parliament calling for an overhaul of all projects and programmes tackling domestic abuse to ensure they address the needs of men as well as women.

They said they became interested in men's experience of domestic abuse after being deeply shaken when men they knew revealed the ordeals they were going through.

Ms Waugh, 58, said: "I know people who have been at the receiving end and was really quite shocked when I realised how difficult life can be for a man in that situation. I was like everyone else – I had no idea."

She said as they tried in vain to find help for male victims, there had been a proliferation of publicly funded campaigns and services aimed at women victims and their children.

Ms Waugh said: "I'm a member of the public; I can see something that is completely wrong and getting worse.

"I felt I could not ignore it and having found out about it, I could not forget about it.

"The kind of situation I have come across would be men who have spent years being physically attacked and finding that women smaller than themselves can actually seem stronger at the time."

She said men could also suffer domestic bullying, controlling behaviour and the curtailing of their activities and their friends.

She added that men who spoke up about abuse were not believed and were likely to face counter-accusation and risk losing access to their children.

"They have to tread on eggshells and make sure they do not offend the wrong people. They have a lot to lose if they raise the issue."

Figures last year showed about 14 per cent of domestic abuse cases recorded by police were of a woman abusing a man.

In the Lothians, the number of men who say they are victims of domestic violence has more than trebled in the past decade.

In their submission to the parliament, the two women said that while more than 100 million will be spent tackling domestic abuse between 1999 and 2011, not a penny of it has gone to fund services or campaigns designed for abused men and their children.

"There are at present no services in Scotland specifically designed for the needs of abused men and their children, nor any general frontline services that address their problems."

But they stressed they did not want to see services that help abused women being cut.

The petition, which has already attracted almost 100 signatures, is expected to be considered by MSPs later this month.