Abused men need help too

NGOs and activists believe the idea of a shelter for battered men, and women with boys over the age of ten was an excellent idea.

Permanent secretary in the Office of the Prime Minister Jacqueline Johnson told the Joint Select Committee on Friday that Government would open four new government-run shelters for victims of domestic violence, including one for battered men.

She said although police statistics show 25 per cent of reports of domestic violence are made by men, none of the eight safe homes run by non-governmental organisations catered for men or for boys over ten.

Therefore, two of the new facilities would accommodate women with children, including boys over ten.

Women and children’s rights activist Diana Mahabir-Wyatt told Sunday Newsday men needing shelter for domestic violence from women was rare, and there were no statistics, but there were also those men who were battered by other men in the household.

“You get boys who are battered by their fathers or fathers battered by their sons. You get elderly men battered by their children, often as a result of the children being battered by the father earlier in life and they are retaliating.”

She said she had seen cases where fathers battered the whole family and when the sons became older, bigger, and stronger, and the fathers started hitting the mothers, the sons beat the fathers and threw them out of the house.

At other times, she said men were put out of their homes by the court because of domestic violence. She said other countries had systems if a man went to court for domestic violence and they had to undergo counselling. In the case of boys staying at the battered women shelters, Mahabir-Wyatt said there were reasons boys over ten were not allowed in these facilities. “What we found was that boys over ten are very disturbed when they see women come in battered and bleeding, although they have probably seen that happen with their mothers. Also, around that age they hit puberty and they start to be sexually aware. It gets to be a little bit difficult with them when they are in a home with a lot of women.” She added that some studies showed children become sexually active around age 11 or 12, especially if they were sexually abused earlier on, and it caused problems at the shelters. She described it as a very complex issue but said she would be very happy if Government built those shelters for men, and mothers with boys over ten.

Luke Sinnette, a social worker with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) NGO Friends for Life, believed the homes would be very helpful as men from the LGBT community sometimes needed to flee their homes.

He said the need to leave occurred particularly with young people because it is in their late teens that people in general try to find others like themselves, develop relationships, and search for an identity. At that time they usually identify themselves as gay, not only to themselves but to others. “LGBT people make up a significantly low portion of the population. Still, a large amount of those who come to us, at least one person a month, are running from families. It’s either the community you live in is physically abusive or people give you a hard time in the road, they beat you up, the call you names, they threaten you all the time, or they are actually running from family members who physically, emotionally or financially abuse to you and you are trying to get away from that.”

Marlon Bascombe, a member of the regional executive of The Caribbean Male Action Network, also believed the shelter was a good move and there would be a need for more than one shelter for men.

“There is a lack of free space, especially for young men, to be able to rehabilitate and to recover from whatever trauma they would have gone through.” As for boys over the age of ten at shelters, he believed management of the facilities should have some discretion and that it should not be automatic that an 11-year-old boy was not allowed to be with his mother.