About 194 men have been victims of assault by their partners in the past six months according to the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team (DSVRT)
This was contained in DSVRT’s report for the first and second quarter of the year.
The current figure slightly exceeds the number of assault cases among men over last year’s report which amounted to about 108 reported cases.
Cases that involved adults are 1329 cases with 85% been female, while the rest are male. DSVRT noted.
The results also revealed that 77 percent of the adults were married, 11 percent single, seven percent widowed and divorced, while five percent were cohabiting.
The DSVRT Coordinator, Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi said the gender-based violence among men and women till date has recorded steady ncrease, noting that due to cultural norms, men find it difficult to report such cases.
She said, “patriarchy is an enemy of everybody because it keeps people in silence. From a young age, males are not allowed to express themselves when they are experiencing trauma, and that lingers on to adulthood. When a man is experiencing violence, even his fellow men mock him, and such a person will not be able to speak up.
“With the data we are seeing, we are confident that when men are aware, they can report these incidents. They will be treated with empathy and professionalism, and they can be encouraged to speak up and report.”
The report by DSVRT revealed that out of the 1,329 adults, 1,236 were aged between 18 years and 45 years, while 93 were 45 years and above.