According to APAV’s statistics on “Male Victims,” 10,261 individuals required the association’s assistance between 2022 and 2024, marking a 23.3% increase over these three years.
The number has been gradually increasing, with 3,013 male victims in 2022, 3,532 in 2023, and 3,716 in 2024, indicating that, on average, the association supported nine male victims per day.
Daniel Cotrim, the technical advisor to APAV’s board, attributes this rise to increased information and sensitivity regarding violence, leading to a higher number of reports.
“This is a phenomenon we have been observing in recent years, with a rise in the number of reports from men about victimization situations. These data somehow confirm this trend of increasing support requests from men. There is greater awareness,” he emphasized.
The majority of victims are adult men, comprising 40.6% of the total, including individuals aged between 18 and 64.
Throughout the three years, APAV supported 4,167 adults, averaging 116 people per month or four per day.
The second most represented group is children and young people, aged from zero to 17 years, with 3,556 victims (34.7%) receiving support from APAV, averaging three children and young people per day.
There were also 1,136 elderly male victims (11.1%), averaging 32 per month, seven per week, and one per day, alongside 1,402 (13.6%) individuals for whom age information was not recorded.
Regarding crimes and forms of violence, APAV’s data shows that domestic violence is the most prominent crime, with 11,906 recorded incidents, followed by 885 crimes of physical assault.
The third place in the top six is held by 731 threats and coercion crimes, followed by 570 cases of insult/defamation, 400 fraud cases, and 331 child sexual abuse crimes.
Regarding the latter, Daniel Cotrim explained that reports arise through three channels: family members — “in the vast majority of cases, 90%, sexual abuse occurs in a family context” — the Judiciary Police, the authority responsible for investigating sexual crimes, and schools or other entities, but in fewer numbers.
APAV recorded a total of 17,279 crimes over these three years, representing a 19.8% increase between 2022 and 2024.
The association explains that the difference between the number of crimes and forms of violence (n=17,279) and the number of male victims (n=10,261) is due to a single victim potentially being subject to multiple crimes and forms of violence simultaneously.
Regarding victim characterization, the majority (77.7%) are of Portuguese nationality, against 12.1% foreign and 10.2% for whom information is unavailable, residing in the districts of Faro (20.2%), Lisbon (16.7%), Porto (10.8%), and Braga (9.6%).
In nearly 50% of cases, there is a close relationship between the aggressor and the victim, with 21.8% of cases involving a parent or stepparent, 21.2% involving a current or former intimate relationship, and in 5.1% of cases, the aggressor is a child of the victim.
This phenomenon is explained, according to Daniel Cotrim, by the fact that domestic violence was the main reported crime, with 11,906 cases recorded over the three years, presupposing an “intimate context” between the victim and the aggressor.
Domestic violence also explains why 36.6% of victims face continued violence and the delay in seeking help, with 29.8% of victims taking between two and six years to seek help from APAV for the first time, and another 10.9% needing 12 or more years.
According to Daniel Cotrim, this delay in reporting relates to the cycle of violence, but also the difficulty men have in recognizing what is happening to them, aside from the stigma and shame associated with it.
