Women are not the only victims of stalking and violence. A truth confirmed by the fact that also in Italy the percentage of men victims of harassment and persecution is increasing. It seems difficult for this phenomenon to find a space and it happens that, in the first national plan against stalking and gender violence, adopted by the Italian government some days ago, any reference to violence against men is mentioned and the only violence to fight is that against women. Nevertheless, according to the Observatory on behaviours and deviances data, in the last 5 years an average of 36 men every year had died killed by their partners.
This female violence trend finds a large confirmation, even in other European nations. In 2008 in France, according to a report of the national observatory on delinquency, not less than 110thousand men have been victims of conjugal violence, with an average of 27 deaths per year. Evidently this numbers are clearly lowest if compared to those regarding the violence against women, but they witness, more than words, the reality of a phenomenon which is culpably kept under silence.
Even more meaningful is the case of the United Kingdom. Data provided by the Ministry of interior of His Majesty reveal that men are the 40% of all the victims of violence within the couple. In particular from 43,4% of 2006-2007 they reached the 45,5% in 2007-2008. And this is not all. According to the same source, in fact, women charged of domestic violence are more than doubled, from 1575 in 2004-2005 to 4266 in 2008-2009. Furthermore, according to the appraisals, 2,6 million men have been victims of domestic abuses when they were children. This situation has led the Welsh Women’s aid (WWA), to provide, for the first time, aid programs addressed to the men.
The figures mentioned do not provide a complete picture of the reality. The feeling is that men are treated as “second class victims” and that, most of the time, their complaints are not seriously considered by the Police. In addition, there is their reluctance to report harassment episodes, for fear of losing their virility in front of the society.
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