eye to eye

Zurich Suddenly she pounced on him. He fell to the ground, sustained injuries and back pain that he never got rid of. The 40-year-old JW* no longer understood the world. It had only been a few months since he married the 32-year-old Tunisian woman. He dreamed of heaven - and experienced hell. Threats, insults, beatings. At some point he gathered all his courage and filed a complaint.   

The woman was sentenced to a fine of 150 francs. Two months later the verdict was overturned. Reason: A man needs additional evidence in addition to injuries. Today the taxi driver is a broken man.

JW is not an isolated case. The number of women who hit men or women has increased significantly in recent years. This is proven by crime statistics from various cantons in the area of ​​“domestic violence”, which are available to the SonntagsZeitung according to the gender of the perpetrators.

In the cantons of Zurich and St. Gallen, the number of cases opened against women has almost tripled within four years. Women are still victims of domestic violence in 80 percent of cases. However, the trend among female perpetrators is clearly increasing, while the number of perpetrators is declining, especially in recent years in both cantons.

Legal experts are faced with a puzzle, but not the police: the closer they look, the higher the number of perpetrators. For Fabrizio Ruscelli, instructor at the Eastern Switzerland Police School and head of the “Domestic Violence” department at Kapo St. Gallen, the increase is a result of more sensitive police work.

“For a long time, men had no chance to make their voices heard because the police did not take into account that a man could be beaten by a woman and need help from the police,” says Ruscelli. A vicious circle: If a man defends himself, he is reported. If he wants to file a complaint, they say he could have defended himself.

The Kapo St. Gallen interviews both parties and, if necessary, third parties. «It's not enough for us to hear who says what. “We are doing everything we can to get as objective a picture of the situation as possible,” says Ruscelli. In Zurich, police forces were also sensitized and trained.

“Women used to just take it. Nowadays they are increasingly aware of their rights - or they sometimes fight back," says Ariane Rufino, former coordinator of the intervention centers against domestic violence and co-head of the intervention center in Basel, which also recorded more cases of violent women.

Andrea Wechlin, co-director of the women's shelter in Lucerne, has a different approach to explaining the different developments between women and men: As the authorities have become more aware, the perpetrators have also become more cautious. This is also evident in the daily work in the women's shelter. “Some men know exactly how far the abuse can go so that it is barely enough to report it.”

* Editor’s name known

VeV comment 

This article highlights facts that have long been clear to those affected. Domestic violence is and has always been a human problem, not a male one.

There are people who commit violence, both men and women. 

But in our society there is a group that clearly claims victim status and that is women.

Men are regularly denied this status.

It is time for male victims to be recognized as such and to be protected from further acts of violence.

That's why the VeV calls for equal rights for men on this point and demands that a men's shelter finally be built in addition to the around 26 women's shelters in Switzerland.

The comment from the women's shelter director from Lucerne at the end of the article shows the level at which this issue is now taking place. Way down, where in an article about victims they are ultimately turned into perpetrators again. Simply unbelievable for me!