Most Zimbabwean men in UK suffer domestic violence in silence

Zimbabwean men have suffered in silence in the UK as they bleed under the cruel squeeze of their wives. The most painful thing is that nobody believes that a man can be violated by a woman or that a man can be a victim of domestic violence. It is very true that in focusing attention on the consequences women face from male-perpetrated violence; we missed a bigger issue, that the majority of victims of violence are men. Zimbabwean men have become slaves of their wives and they have nowhere to report.

Men have been labelled because traditionally men used to commit more violent crimes than women. Around 85-90% of convicted murderers are men, a majority of the reported domestic abusers and pretty much all of those committing sexual attacks. However - and this is the part that gets overlooked - almost twice as many men than women are the victims of violence. Society has a great inclination towards women, and is prone to believe everything a woman says about the husband. Most women have become drama queens and when they report their men they describe the incident with such emotion that you wonder how she still has a life.  The world gives lots of attention to protecting women against violence. the campaigns all over are tabulating that it's wrong to hit a woman to walking women home, very little seems to be being done to protect men, or to dissuade anyone from the idea that it's also wrong to hit a man. Is male life cheaper?

the problem is that on arriving in the UK the women are the first to get a highly paying job. Most care jobs employers give preference to the woman before they even consider a man. So the economic tables tilt very fast and the woman becomes a bread winner. Generally men are lazy and they only do one job while women take any job on offer. This fattens the woman's purse while the man's purse is empty. The woman then throws her weight in the house and switches the roles.

Most men are forced to cook wash plates and does the entire child care. If he says any word he is quickly reminded that he is on the wife's visa and that he can be sent home any time. if he dares lift a voice the women just dials 999 and the rest is history.

Unlike Zimbabwe the police in England take no explanation from a man in a domestic violence. The Zimbabwean women can act; they call it water works, meaning playing with tears. They will scream in English and do all the poems of pain they have rehearsed. She will sit in a corner and will appear as if she has been thrown in a lion's den. She will be so dramatic and so exaggerating. Some will go to an extent of self-harming just to prove that they have been assaulted.

the greatest weapon in the hand of the woman is the visa. If she came first and got the visa first then the man is a dependent of the wife under the family visa or any other dependants they might have applied for. For the couple to prove that the relationship is subsisting the man must stay with the woman for six years before they get indefinite. Those six years are called the years of horror.

It takes long to realise that domestic violence is not exclusively male on female: the ONS statistics for 2011-12 show that while 1.2 million women experienced domestic violence, so too did 800,000 men. A 1994 University of Iowa paper by veteran criminal lawyer Alan Dershowitz reported that over 40% of US spousal murders are perpetrated by women .

Much female-perpetrated violence in the home goes unreported, for reasons of shame, perceived biases in the family courts, and the readiness of police to assume that the male will always be the aggressor. While none of this is to get away from the baseline fact that the committing of acts of physical domestic violence, including murder, is predominantly male, it's not nearly as one-sided as all that. Zimbabwean men have suffered a lot under their female counterparts. What makes this situation bad is that the close family tie which has kept marriages together does not exist in the UK. There are no aunties who sit you down and solve the issues.

The Minority Families Advisory a charitable organisation based in the Midlands has reported that most African men have been assaulted by their women, and that they are ashamed to report or to come forward. the system is so anti men such that if a man is chased out of the house he is likely going to be removed from the UK because he is no longer supported by his wife on the visa. if it is a woman she will be given a visa under a domestic violence visa. The odds are against the men.

Men suffer in every aspect. Outside the home, your chances of being attacked or killed are much higher if you're a man. in the house you are the wrong one even if you are right.

Right across the spectrum from global conflicts to solitary depression, violence is committed chiefly against men. The male rate of suicide is three times that of women, and rising. Suicide in men in their forties and fifties has risen 40% in ten years. And here, at least, in the midst of the gloom, a small beachhead of understanding may be being established:  the disintegration, vilification and ridicule of 'traditional' maleness is so pronounced in the Zimbabwean men in diaspora.

John Tabvuma from London (I have put his name with his full consent) was accused of having s*xually abused his daughter of four. The wife was adamant that she saw everything and screamed. The police were called. John languished in remand prison for a year before he was acquitted. It transpired that they were divorcing and the woman had to scheme so that she will get the house and the child custody. it was only after the police remembered after a year that there was a CCtv in the House. This shows the extent some women go to elbow their men out of the house or to subdue them and keep them under control.

Mr P Dhlamini a social worker said "I have been called to several hoses where there are complaints of abuse only to discover that there is domination fight. The other partner wants to be felt and has to use the abuse card"

Women in England have used from physical torture of men to sexual and emotional torture. Most men have been starved by their women and told that I will report you of rape if you try to get it by force." some men are living in that starvation for a long time and they cannot go away as they rely on the woman for papers to stay.

The police have always taken sides of women in any report. Unless the man is thoroughly beaten.

The emphasis seems to remain on protecting women from harm, but men are afforded no such protection.

The gender bias is never spoken of - but why?

If society is not to keep assuming it's OK for men to get hurt and killed, it might be worth looking at the male body counts on display. Men have been on the sharp end of the sword. it is surely the saying my brother Richmore always say "shiri ya nhonga rekeni" loosely translated the bird has picked up catapult. Women are overwhelmed by the powers they now have in the UK and have no care for their marriages.

When female stereotypes began to be dismantled, much of what was sloughed off was the outdated cultural assumptions. Although they had long behaved with subservience, as society required, women are not somehow biologically suited to subservience - this much we know. And if that is true, then perhaps men are not naturally predisposed to committing violence, much less to being condemned to suffer its effects.

Is there a concern that recognising that men have these dual, divergent roles in violence - that they are victims as well as perpetrators - risks taking the focus off women? It doesn't have to, and indeed mustn't. But compassion is not a zero sum game.

If we can start to understand that the ultimate distillation of male-on-male violence - male suicide - has causes that can be understood, and that some them are rooted in society's perpetuation of ideas of what men are, we can perhaps begin to imagine that other facets of male violence - perpetration and victimhood - might similarly be understood as cultural constructs that can be dismantled, rather than as forces of nature. When it comes to male violence, focussing the attention exclusively on women is not merely to misunderstand the problem, but to miss the opportunity to start fixing the problem. No-one will be gladder to put a stop to male violence than men.

the result of this punishment men are getting in the UK is the high divorce rate, high promiscuity, high suicide and the stress levels are so high. Zimbabwe tops the African citizens in UK in the number of the dead being repatriated monthly. Most of these deaths are down to stress caused by these domestic issues.

Most men have and are suffering from mental health due to these problems and the abrupt change of roles in the UK.

it must be stated though that some men are the problems themselves, they do not want to help with any work in the house, they are busy boozing and womanising. Some men are worse than the women. The writer will discuss the men's follies in due course.

VAZET2000@YAHOO.CO.UK