Violence shelters for men: rare refuge

Domestic violence primarily affects women. But men also experience psychological humiliation or physical attacks and need protection. There have been isolated shelters for men for a long time across the country. A little over a year ago, the first specialized violence protection apartments for men and non-binary people and their children opened in Hanover and Hamburg. The experience here shows that the need is high, the implementation is working, but it is unclear whether and how things can continue permanently after 2027.

The fact that these specialized refuge spaces were created is a response to a structural gap in the support system for victims of domestic and partner violence: although women still make up the vast majority of those affected, according to the Federal Criminal Police Office's crime statistics, around one in five victims of partner violence is male. According to a study by the Lower Saxony Criminological Research Institute, every second man is affected by intimate partner violence over the course of his life.

The number of unreported cases is considered high because shame, social role models and the fear of not being taken seriously as victims of violence often prevent affected men from seeking help or reporting the crime. If they escape from their shared household, they also face the problem that conventional shelters such as women's shelters are closed to them.

The impact of these hurdles can be seen in everyday counseling, says Ilka von Engel from Lawaetz – Wohnen & Leben gGmbH, which has created the first shelter for men and non-binary people in Hamburg with the Alivio project. An apartment for a two-person shared apartment was added in the spring.

Particularly for men in exposed professions - such as the judiciary, the police, the medical profession or the security industry - entering the help system collides with common images of masculinity. “The more difficult it is in a society to seek help as a man, the more difficult it is for those affected,” emphasizes von Engel. The guaranteed anonymity is often the only way for these clients to confide in each other.

Without specialized contact points, acute crisis situations often lead directly to homelessness for the men affected - or they force them to remain in the violent relationship, says Tjark van Neer from the Hanover Men's Office Association, who leads the shelter housing project there. The association has been supporting male victims of intimate partner violence and advising perpetrators for around 20 years.

In Hanover, the association runs a shelter at an anonymous address with three places for fathers and children. The inquiries were in the high double-digit range. “We have a product that is so rare that it is not worth advertising because it creates false hopes,” says van Neer.

Many men also sought protection in Hamburg, says von Engel. Both apartments are occupied at all times. In the first year there were more than 30 specific inquiries. Eleven could not be taken into account, for example because there was no domestic violence, there was another responsibility or there were acute psychological crises and care was not guaranteed, says von Engel. The prerequisite for admission is always connection to specialized advice centers such as Victim Support Hamburg, I.bera or Basis Praevent.

The central bottleneck in everyday life - similar to women's shelters - is the lack of connecting apartments in both Hamburg and Hanover. If the move out of the shelter into your own apartment is stalled, this blocks the urgently needed places for those seeking help who are coming up, says van Neer.

The financing of the model projects officially expires at the end of 2027, but beyond that they are not yet secured. For the employees and especially for the clients, who already come from insecure circumstances, this planning uncertainty means an enormous additional burden, says van Neer. But he is confident, also because he is experiencing that sensitivity and openness to the topic is increasing.

Beyond the model projects in Hamburg and Hanover, the network of facilities that are specifically aimed at male victims of domestic and partner violence is still thin in the north.

Schleswig-Holstein, for example, currently lacks a separate system of protective housing for male victims of violence. In an emergency, those affected remain dependent on general advice centers or homeless shelters. Although there are outpatient counseling services in Bremen, there is no specialized violence protection apartment for men.

In Lower Saxony, apart from the model project in Hanover, there has been a volunteer-run shelter apartment in Oldenburg since 2002, the first of its kind in the country.

Both van Neer and von Engel emphasize that the expansion of men's protection facilities should in no way be played off against the protection of women. "You have to see it differently. You need both," said von Engels. Van Neer also warns against allowing the issue to be exploited politically for camp struggles or divisions.