Sir, The report by Nuala Haughey (June 12th) on the two day cross border conference on domestic violence held in Ballyconnell gave the impression that all victims of domestic violence are female and only men are perpetrators.
This is certainly not the case in England. The 1996 British Crime Survey estimated that, in 1995, male victims of domestic violence accounted for about 30 per cent of the total (290,000 out of 990,000). The results of my own private research into police statistics for 1995/96 support this national average. Indeed, in some areas, the proportion is well over this figure. In addition, the proportion of male victims for younger and older age groups is over 50 per cent in some areas.
I appreciate that male offenders account for some of the male victims. However, the 1996 BCS also estimated that in 1995 female offenders accounted for about 21 per cent of the total for all victims of domestic violence and 48 per cent of the total for male victims. Police statistics on domestic violence available for 1995/96 which give data on female offenders suggest a similar average proportion.
Other studies, however, such as the updated 1994 MORI survey (Aggressive Behaviour, Volume 22, 1996 "Aggression in British Heterosexual Relationships: A Descriptive Analysis", by Carrado, George, Loxam, Jones and Templar) and the October 1996 MORI Research Study conducted for Dr Malcolm George of Queen Mary & Westfield College, London, suggest a higher incidence of female offenders.
Studies in the United States suggest a similar persistent higher incidence there.
Irish people, and Irish men in particular, should beware of the radical feminist policies on domestic violence being increasingly adopted in the States, as preached by Ms Ellen Pence and others, revealed only a few days before the Ballyconnell conference by an article entitled "Husbands take a beating by law in the London Sunday Telegraph on June 8th. Such policies are resulting in a feminist jurisprudence, in which innocent men can be "shopped on the slightest or no pretext by vindictive or spiteful wives or partners and are then assumed guilty until proved innocent. Minor injuries are relatively easy to self inflict if they result in an unwanted husband or male partner being mandatorily arrested and so easily ousted from the home.
All this is not to dispute the seriousness of real domestic violence, and it is a problem which needs to be addressed. But it is not just a "women's issue"; it is a social issue, affecting men, women and children. So long as.the issue is polarised by sexual politics, as it has increasingly become, into a simplistic (and incorrect) scenario of female victims and male offenders, effective, holistic and just solutions to the problem are unlikely to result.
Ms Pence's "radical" solution has undertones of the Third Reich, and is more likely to be a vehicle for serious injustice and breach of human rights. Yours, etc.,
Ascot, Berkshire.