At least 80 male victims of domestic violence

Joan Collins AT least 80 Balearic men suffered domestic violence at the hands of their partners in 2005 and 481 women were denounced for physically or psychologically assaulting their partners. These figures put the Balearics among the top regions in the national ranking for this type of incident, according to figures from the General Judicial Council. Although the number of women victims of domestic violence exceed the number of men, the statistics point to “a dramatic increase in the number of men making complaints, which shows that it is not always the woman who is the victim”, said the President of the Balearic Association for Fathers of Separated Families, Jorge Skibinsky. Actually, a total of 481 Balearic men, 409 Spanish and 72 foreigners, made a complaint against their partners for domestic violence in 2005, of which 84 resulted in distance orders against the aggressors, of which 73 were Spanish and 11 foreign. These are very much lower figures than for women victims, as already this year the Balearic courts have granted 500 distance orders against men. On this subject, Skibinsky said that the violence perpetrated against men is different from that against women, as it is more “psychological, suggestive and based on threats”, and added that in 70 percent of cases the assault on partners happened “during the period of separation”. He said that women generally use the children as a “method of blackmail” as in 97 percent of the cases they get custody of the children. On the other hand, Skibinsky commented that false accusations by women are “another form of ill treatment against men”. It is because of this that women, knowing that they are protected by the Domestic Violence Law, “abuse this protection to get a quick judgement and a divorce”, he said. Throughout Spain, 9'421 women were reported for assault by their partners and 73'785 men by theirs. More than 2'600 protection orders for men were issued. The regions where most of these were issued were: Andalucia (459), Cataluña (402), Valencia (288), and Madrid (238). Physical aggression is a constant in many cases of assault on men. Skibinsky said that in 2005 two men died in the Balearics because of domestic violence.