IMPORTANT: Survey Of Men Who Are (Or Have Been) Victims Of Domestic Violence, In England And Wales

By Mike Buchanan: Paul Apreda is the highly-respected and indefatigable National Manager of a registered charity in Wales, Families Need Fathers Both Parents Matter Cymru. The Equalities and Human Rights Commission – which has hitherto been notorious for not caring about the human rights of men and boys as a class – has asked Paul to provide ‘robust evidence’ that men have found it increasingly difficult to provide the evidence of being a victim of domestic violence – including but not limited to abuse which was psychological, physical, sexual, financial or emotional – that is required by the Legal Aid Agency.
Two weeks ago, Paul launched a survey for men living in England or Wales, who have been (or remain) the victim of domestic violence. The survey is limited to England and Wales in order to provide geographical comparability with a survey carried out by Rights of Women, the results of which were presented to EHRC.
The EHRC also took evidence from Women’s Aid Federation of England and Wales, and Welsh Women’s Aid. A year ago we publicly challenged Eleri Butler, Chief Executive of Welsh Women’s Aid, over two lies in her submission to the Welsh Assembly, and two obsolete statistics on her website. Our blog piece on the matter, which includes a link of our challenge of Ms Butler, is here. She never responded to it.

Paul has provided some interesting background to his reasons for starting the survey – Men and Equality in Wales. A page with a link to the survey is here. The survey was launched 14 August, and within a week it had almost 100 responses. Some of the powerful comments from those responses are here.

This is a really important survey, and presents a rare opportunity to engage substantively with a public body, the EHRC. I urge you to complete it if you are (or were) a victim of domestic violence in England or Wales, and whether or not you are, to pass it on to other men you know who are (or have been) victims. Thank you.

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