Men who suffer sex attacks are now twice as likely to report them as female victims a recent poll has claimed. The poll of 1,561 women and 1,419 men was carried out by ITV’s This Morning. The survey found 16% of women and 8% of men had suffered sex attacks. Of those, half the men reported the attack to police, compared with only a quarter of the women.
Commenting on the findings specialist abuse solicitor, Peter Garsden, said:
“I am surprised by the headline statistic about men being more likely to report abuse than women. I am the President of the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers, and see a lot of psychological reports on male victims.
In general terms men find it much more difficult to disclose feelings than women.
There are two types of abuse on males – by females and males. Male/Male abuse is usually kept secret for many years for reasons no less understandable than the shame of admitting that an older male teacher/care worker assaulted a young boy at school/in care.
Because men keep these things to themselves the damage is usually more acute and internalised.”
Other findings the survey revealed were that 75% of those asked said that they should be made aware if a paedophile lives near by.