Despite male culture, domestic violence against Iranian men is increasing

Jazeera Net-Tehran

Domestic violence against men has been growing in Iran, although the dominance of patriarchal ideas in the culture of society prevents many of them from exposing their wife to violence.

There has been much talk of domestic violence against Iranian men in the last decade, after society has become accustomed to hearing news of crimes committed daily against women in the past centuries, while many victims of this strange phenomenon still prefer silence over publicity and filing complaints, due to embarrassment and pride.

The website "Salamat News" report on the growing phenomenon of violence against men in Iran, and warned that some activists in the field of combating domestic violence against women, exceeded the "anti-violence" in favor of "violence against men versus women", describing the idea as the beginning of a deviation Praise his heels.

The report revealed the high frequency of domestic violence against men in Iran of all kinds: physical, verbal and psychological, as well as the threat and deprivation of marital rights, noting that the focus on violence against women may ignore the second side of this currency, stressing the need to recognize the problem in preparation To develop solutions.

According to the website of health and medical sciences, many victims of wife violence in Iran have been repeatedly threatened, blackmailed and deprived of their marital rights.

Addiction and violence
The 30-year-old Shadmahr (pseudonym), who was filing a complaint against his wife at the family court of the Wank branch (north of Tehran), attributed the violence to his wife's alcoholism.

In an interview with Al Jazeera Net, he added that he discovered after a year of marriage that his wife Farnaz is taking drugs, and after trying to save and treat her, she became angry and started beating him;

Amir Hussein, who was referred by the Tehran mabahith administration to the Forensic Medicine Organization to examine the effects of his wife's severe beating, says he did not expect his opposition to going to his wife's father's house would lead to broken nose.

The young man, who has only two years since his marriage, told Al Jazeera Net that the phenomenon of violence against men was not born today in Iran, but strange that our parents did not disclose it, based on the heavy legacy of male power.

"I decided not to be silent about domestic violence, unlike my father-in-law, who established his fingerprint against the violence of his wife a bad year inherited by his daughter."

Numbers and statistics
The latest report by the Forensic Medicine Organization on domestic violence indicates that the phenomenon increased by 5.8% during the Iranian year 1396 (2016-2017), compared with the previous year, and that the rate of violence against men increased from 5 to 7% during the same period.

According to the organization's statistics, about 5,000 Iranian men were subjected to violence by their wives between March 2016 and February 2017.

A study by the Faculty of Sociology at the University of Mazandaran (Northern Iran) on domestic violence in the province showed that 68% of men were subjected to mild bleeding, 7% of them experienced moderate violence by their wives, while 2% of those surveyed experienced severe domestic violence. .

Psychological violence
According to the results of the study, psychological violence topped the list of types of domestic violence against men, while economic, social and physical violence ranked second to fourth.

In another study published in the Journal of Rafsanjan University of Medical Sciences on domestic violence in the southern city of Shiraz; that most of the women who practiced psychological violence and deprivation of the husband's marital rights during the past year were suffering from drug abuse.

According to the results of the study, the wives of 12.5% ​​of the men who reviewed forensic medicine as a result of domestic violence by their wives suffered from drug addiction, 36.75 of them suffered from complications of smoking, and 12.82% of the wives of the study who had previously used alcohol.

The study also showed that the intervention of the wife's family, the lack of financial independence of the husband and his livelihood from his wife or her family, and the lack of emotional independence and attachment to the family of his father, the most important causes of violence against men.

Divorce and violence
At a seminar on violence against men held at the Islamic Azad University in Tehran, the judge of the Court of Appeal, Ebrahim Salami, expressed regret that the definition of the phenomenon of violence was not specified in the penal code, stressing that Mazandaran is among the provinces of Iran, which ranks first in violence against men.

He added that the true number of men subjected to domestic violence by their wives is more than that announced by the Forensic Medicine Organization, which relies on people who report the incident of their own free will, while there are many men who prefer to keep it secret.

He considered that divorce laws were in the best interests of men, so some women were violent to obtain their right to secede, after reaching a dead end in life.