The Commissioner for Victims of Crime Office in Northern Ireland has published research conducted by CES and Queen’s University Belfast, into the supports available for male victim-survivors of domestic and sexual abuse in Northern Ireland.
The report ‘Mapping Services for Male Adult and Child Victim-Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Abuse in Northern Ireland’ assesses existing support services for male victim-survivors and identifies service gaps.
The research was carried out by Dr Colm Walsh from Queen's University Belfast and Dearbhaile Slane, Andy Bray and Jessica Scott from CES.
The researchers carried out a desktop review of existing services and surveyed and interviewed service providers. The key research findings are:
- A range of barriers exist for male victim-survivors in disclosing and accessing support for their abuse.
- Public and professional discourses tend to frame domestic violence as a women’s issue, which can marginalise male victims and deter help-seeking.
- Many men don’t recognise their experiences as abuse for fear they won’t be believed. Male victims can face stigma, disbelief, and a lack of tailored services.
- Men may struggle with internalised stigma, such as feeling ‘less of a man’, and fear losing custody of their children, which can further complicate their engagement with services.
- Aside from these barriers to disclosure, a further challenge for male victim-survivors is accessing information about existing services and supports. The CES research team found it incredibly difficult to access up to date information about services and supports that could be accessed by men who have experienced abuse. Given the difficulties we encountered, we would anticipate it would be even for more challenging for men.
- Existing services are stretched, and funding is precarious. Short term, insecure and insufficient funding was identified as a central challenge that limited what services could provide and for some organisations in the community and voluntary sector this resulted in a reliance on volunteers and pressure to fundraise.
- To truly meet the needs of male victim-survivors, we must centre their voices. This report highlights a critical gap: the absence of direct engagement with men and boys about their experiences, needs, and preferences for services and support. Future research must prioritise listening to male victim-survivors to inform service design, delivery, and commissioning. Without their input, we risk developing services based on assumptions rather than lived realities.
Dearbhaile Slane, CES Project Specialist said,
"The organisations which participated in our research demonstrate a real commitment to supporting male victim-survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, but with very limited resources.”
“The evidence we were able to gather points to the need for increased service provision to meet this significant need, adequate funding to enable services to deliver in the long term, and more awareness-raising to ensure men can access support. There is also a need for more in depth understanding of the barriers to accessing support for male victim-survivors and for them to have their voices heard."
Geraldine Hanna, Commissioner Designate for Victims of Crime said,
“All victim-survivors of domestic and sexual abuse, whether they are male or female, should have access to dedicated specialist support services. This mapping exercise provides important information for policy makers who are keen to tackle the issue of domestic and sexual abuse. This goes beyond the justice system. This is a pressing public health issue with significant implications for victim-survivors and our wider society. Male victim-survivors face specific barriers in coming forward to report their abuse and tackling the scourge of domestic abuse must mean that we are committed to breaking those barriers down.”
“I am grateful to the researchers for their work, and I will continue to work closely with the Executive and others to push for greater support for all those who need it.”
The report is available here:
Mapping Services for Male Adult and Child Victim-Survivors of Domestic and Sexual Abuse in NI | Commissioner for Victims of Crime Northern Ireland
