Mankind Initiative – 25 key facts on domestic violence

For a while we’ve been using Mankind Initiative’s ’21 key facts about domestic violence’ document, first published a year or two ago. They recently updated the document to 25 key facts, drawing on 2012/13 statistics from the British Crime Survey. Again we see the continuing stark disparity between the number of refuge places available for men, and those available for women. For every refuge place available for abused men in the UK, there are over 100 available for abused women. Feminists will tell you the disparity is reasonable given that the risk to women is higher than the risk to men. While it’s true that more women than men are killed by partners or former partners – although the number has declined by 25% in the past decade – a higher proportion of male victims (34%) than female victims (28%) were subjected to ‘severe force’ in 2012/13.