Intimate Partner Violence and Abuse

PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Henry Herrera
Telephone: +1-301-801-0608
Email: info@saveservices.org

UN Policies Leave Male Victims of Partner Abuse Unprotected

April 8, 2026 — A recent Canadian study found that lack of services and stigma leave male survivors of intimate partner violence without support (1). Despite evidence of male victimization in intimate relationships, Canada, like many other countries, lacks institutional support for men who experience abuse. As a result, male survivors may feel compelled to cope with IPV on their own (2).

 In the United Kingdom, men account for an estimated 40–42% of all domestic abuse victims, yet only 4.4% of those are supported by local domestic services are male (3).

Evidence from a 2024 systematic review indicates that domestic violence can be bidirectional, with both partners reporting similar rates of aggression in certain contexts (4).  So why are male victims of partner abuse largely absent from global response efforts?

The United Nations has established major global initiatives focused on women and girls, including the Essential Services Package (2015)(5), the Spotlight Initiative (2017) (6), the UNiTE campaign, and the RESPECT Women framework (7)(8).

The UN has also committed major funding to these efforts supporting women. For instance, the Spotlight Initiative alone represents more than €500 million dedicated to addressing violence against women and girls (9).  In contrast, no dedicated programs or funding exist that specifically target male victims of partner abuse in civilian settings (10).

This disparity is also reflected in service access.  Evidence from a large retrospective analysis found that among more than 35,000 survivors who accessed sexual violence services supported by Médecins Sans Frontières in humanitarian settings, only 3.5% were male, underscoring the scarcity of services for male victims (11).

Male victims are largely missing from current United Nations and humanitarian programs.

The ICMB urges policymakers, United Nations agencies, and international stakeholders to ensure future initiatives are inclusive, evidence-based, and responsive to both male and female victims.

The International Council for Men and Boys is a non-governmental organization working to end the 12 sex disparities that affect men and boys worldwide. The ICMB is a leader of the emerging global movement to address these disparities. https://www.menandboys.net/

Links:

  1. https://www.sfu.ca/sfunews/stories/2025/04/lack-of-services–stigma-leave-male-survivors-of-intimate-partne.html
  2. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10896-025-00847-8
  3. .https://mankind.org.uk/statistics/statistics-on-male-victims-of-domestic-abuse/
  4. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37594220/
  5. https://www.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2015/12/essential-services-package-for-women-and-girls-subject-to-violence
  6. https://www.spotlightinitiative.org/
  7. https://www.unwomen.org/en/get-involved/16-days-of-activism
  8. https://knowledge.unwomen.org/en/digital-library/publications/2019/05/respect-women-preventing-violence-against-women
  9. https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/spotlight-initiative
  10. https://evaw.unwomen.org/
  11. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(25)00318-3/fulltext

A review of the publicly available UN initiatives addressing partner abuse and domestic violence, analyzed for this release, may be accessed here:
https://grok.com/share/c2hhcmQtMi1jb3B5_6e555a9c-f6b9-4c9b-8852-7568df383da2

The ICMB analysis of United Nations programs on partner abuse and domestic violence is available here:
https://www.menandboys.net/un-2/