Domestic Violence Against Men

 By HAFSAT ROGO

 

No amount of excuses would give justifiable reasons for the domestic abuse of a spouse by the other. Unarguably, Abuse is supposed to be addressed across the board and irrespective of gender, because violence against men or women is violence against humanity, and violence against humanity is injustice to all.

Meanwhile, one of the gender topics that is often veiled with a long veil is domestic violence against men. In fact, whenever domestic abuse occurs in a particular setting, peoples' first aim is to thesis that the man involved is the perpetrator, while the woman is the victim, even though reverse is the case.

For understanding purposes, domestic violence which is synonymous with domestic abuse, spousal abuse, family or intimate partner violence, is a type of behavior which involves the abuse of one partner by the other. This could be in the form of verbal, sexual or psychological nature. Additionally, it occurs in various forms ranging from threat to harm, physical aggression, emotional abuse among other acts.

Domestic violence against men is seldomly gaining popularity but it's still treated with less importance especially in comparison to violence against women and this could be attributed to a number of reasons: which is underreporting of incidence where men are abused by their partners.

The norm, particularly in Nigeria, is that most men hardly report such cases because of the phobia of not losing their acclaimed patriarchal power. In other words, the male opts to keep taciturn when combating this because of the feeling of not having lived up to the societal notion of manliness. As a result of this, this concept then became a rarely discussed subject, until recent years when more men began to speak against it.

Putting a stop to domestic violence, it is important to squash the lopsided view that it is only weak men that experience domestic violence. A total reformation of this mentality could also be encouraged by recommending anti-battery values to school curriculums all over Nigeria, as it would inculcate early recognition of the existence of domestic abuse and ways to curb it. All aspects of Nigerian criminal justice should also be taught to handle domestic violence complaints from men with some form of neutrality and open-mindedness, more effort and measures should be put in public domain in order to serve as a deterrent to women who have battered and murdered their husbands. It is hoped that shedding light on the present realities of domestic abuse of men would balance the scale of violence discussion, especially in Nigeria.