India’s Domestic Violence Law and the Missing Male Victim
India’s domestic violence law was built to answer a real crisis: violence against women inside the home. But the law also makes a hard choice about who can be recognised as a victim. Under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, an “aggrieved person” is a woman. A husband, son, brother or elderly father facing abuse in a domestic relationship does not enter the Act as a person who can seek its core remedies.
That is not a small drafting detail. It decides who can ask a magistrate for a protection order, a residence order, monetary relief, compensation, or emergency civil intervention within the domestic violence framework. A man can still approach the police under ordinary criminal law if there is assault, intimidation, wrongful restraint or another offence. He may cite cruelty in a matrimonial case. But he cannot use the PWDVA as a victim.
This gap sits inside a sensitive policy debate. Women remain the overwhelming majority of domestic violence victims in India, and any reform must not weaken protections built after decades of advocacy. At the same time, a legal system that cannot name a male victim will struggle to count him, protect him, or design services for him.
That is the silence at the heart of the debate on male domestic violence India, gender neutral domestic violence law, PWDVA 2005, domestic violence against men, Indian law male victims. The issue is not whether women’s protections should be reduced. The issue is whether the law can protect women fully while also admitting that some men are victims too.
The PWDVA was written with women at the centre
The Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 was a landmark law because it expanded the legal idea of domestic violence beyond physical assault. It recognised that abuse inside the home can include emotional, verbal, sexual and economic harm. It also created civil remedies that could be sought quickly before a magistrate, without forcing every victim into a long criminal trial.
The Act’s design reflects its purpose. Section 2(a) defines an `aggrieved person` as “any woman” who is, or has been, in a domestic relationship with the respondent and alleges domestic violence. That definition controls access to the Act.
The remedies available under the PWDVA include:
Relief under the PWDVA | What it can do |
Protection order | Restrain acts of violence, threats, communication, or entry into certain spaces |
Residence order | Protect a woman’s right to live in the shared household, subject to court directions |
Monetary relief | Cover expenses and losses linked to domestic violence |
Custody order | Provide temporary custody directions for children |
Compensation order | Award compensation for injuries, including mental torture and emotional distress |
These remedies matter because domestic abuse often does not fit neatly into one police complaint. A victim may need safety, housing stability, financial support and restraint against harassment at the same time. The PWDVA gave courts a tool to respond to that cluster of needs.
The Act was also shaped by a social reality that remains true. Women in India face high levels of domestic violence. Many are economically dependent on the very households where abuse occurs. Many face pressure from families, police stations and communities to “adjust”. Marital rape is still not recognised as a general offence when committed by a husband against an adult wife, subject to the current legal framework and ongoing constitutional debate. Women’s access to safety inside marriage remains incomplete.
That is why women’s rights groups worry when the phrase “gender neutral” enters the debate. Their concern is not abstract. In a country where women already underreport abuse, a careless legal rewrite could make proceedings more hostile to women. It could invite retaliatory complaints by abusive spouses. It could weaken state focus on women’s shelters, protection officers and women-specific helplines.
Those risks must be taken seriously. But they do not erase the narrower question: what happens when a man is abused inside a domestic relationship and needs the same civil protections?
Courts have recognised the limit but pointed to Parliament
Indian courts have not treated this as a simple interpretive problem. The wording of the PWDVA is clear. The victim recognised by the Act is a woman.
In 2016, the Supreme Court in Hiral P. Harsora v. Kusum Narottamdas Harsora expanded who could be a respondent under the PWDVA by striking down parts of the definition that limited respondents to adult males. After that judgment, women could also be respondents in domestic violence proceedings. This mattered because abuse within a household may involve mothers-in-law, sisters-in-law or other female relatives.
But that did not change the definition of the aggrieved person. The person seeking protection under the Act remains a woman.
In 2023, the Delhi High Court, while taking a prima facie view, said the protection of the PWDVA does not extend to a husband or male family member as an aggrieved person. The court’s view followed the structure of the statute. If Parliament defines the beneficiary class as women, a court cannot easily rewrite the law to include men.
The Supreme Court has also been asked to examine laws said to presume men as aggressors. When such a petition reached the Court, the bench reportedly told the petitioners to approach Parliament. That response is institutionally significant. It suggests the issue is not invisible, but it is seen as a legislative policy question rather than one that courts should solve by interpretation.
That leaves male victims in a difficult position. Their legal path exists, but it is fragmented.
A man who faces physical violence may file a complaint under ordinary criminal law, depending on the facts. If he is married, he may plead cruelty in divorce or judicial separation proceedings under the applicable personal law. If there are threats, extortion, property disputes or elder abuse, other laws may apply.
But these routes do not give him an equivalent of the PWDVA’s integrated civil protection model. He cannot approach a magistrate under the Act as an aggrieved person and ask for a protection order against a violent spouse. He cannot use the Act to seek residence protection or monetary relief as a domestic violence victim. He cannot access the statutory architecture built around protection officers and women-focused service providers.
The difference is not symbolic. It changes what help looks like in the first days after abuse.
The data is thin, contested and shaped by stigma
Any serious discussion of domestic violence against men in India must begin with a caveat: the available data is limited, uneven and often politically contested.
NFHS-5 is the most cited national survey source on family health and domestic violence, but its domestic violence module is built around women’s experiences of spousal violence. Media reports discussing male victimisation have cited figures around 4 per cent for men reporting spousal violence. That number is far lower than reported rates for women, and it supports the broad conclusion that women bear a much greater burden of domestic abuse.
Women’s rights organisations are right to stress this. In India, domestic violence is tied to dowry demands, marital control, economic dependence, sexual violence, social stigma and unequal household power. The scale of violence against women is not a matter of opinion. It appears across surveys, court records, police data and field experience.
But there is a second caveat: low reporting is not the same as low prevalence.
This applies to all genders, but it has a particular shape for men. Men who report abuse by wives or female partners may face disbelief. They may be mocked by police, family members or peers. They may be told that a “real man” cannot be a victim. They may fear losing access to children. They may fear counter-complaints. They may also struggle to describe non-physical abuse, such as coercive control, financial control, threats of false implication, public humiliation or isolation from family.
A system that assumes male invulnerability creates a data problem. If a man does not report abuse, he does not enter police data. If surveys do not ask the right questions, he does not enter survey data. If laws do not classify him as a domestic violence victim, he does not enter legal data in that category.
If the law cannot see him, he never reaches the data. If he is not in the data, he never reaches policy.
This loop matters because policy follows categories. India has a national women’s helpline, 181, which serves women in distress. Many states also have women’s cells, one-stop centres and schemes focused on women survivors. These are necessary. But a man seeking help for domestic abuse often has no comparable official entry point. He may depend on a few NGO helplines, informal legal advice, mental health support, or ordinary police channels.
That absence does not prove the problem is large. It proves that the state has not built a way to measure it well.
A better data approach would separate three questions that often get mixed together:
How many women face domestic violence?
How many men face domestic violence?
How do severity, frequency, injury, coercive control and dependence differ by gender?
These questions do not compete. They clarify. A gender-sensitive state should be able to say that women face domestic violence at higher rates and with different structural risks, while also measuring male victimisation where it exists.
The current gap is practical, not just philosophical
The debate often gets framed as a clash of ideology. In practice, the legal gap shows up in ordinary situations.
Consider a husband who alleges that his wife regularly assaults him, threatens self-harm to control him, damages his property and prevents him from contacting his parents. If the facts support criminal offences, he may approach the police. If the marriage has broken down, he may file for divorce on cruelty. If he is elderly and abused by adult children or relatives, he may be able to seek relief under senior citizens’ welfare laws, depending on the facts.
But if he needs immediate civil restraint within the home, the PWDVA is not available to him as a victim. He cannot ask for a PWDVA protection order simply because he is not an aggrieved person under the Act.
Now consider a young man in a live-in relationship who alleges coercive control, physical assault and financial exploitation by his partner. The law may respond to the assault. It may respond to theft or extortion if those offences are made out. But it does not give him a domestic abuse pathway comparable to the one available to a woman in a domestic relationship.
The gap is sharper for abuse that is serious but hard to prosecute criminally. Domestic abuse often includes patterns rather than isolated incidents. These may include:
repeated threats and intimidation
control over money, phone use or movement
humiliation in front of family or neighbours
threats involving children or pets
destruction of personal belongings
pressure to transfer property
false allegations threatened as a form of control
Some of these may fit criminal offences in specific cases. Many will not. The PWDVA was valuable because it recognised pattern-based harm and allowed civil relief. The question is why that logic disappears when the victim is male.
This does not mean every allegation by a man should be accepted at face value. No allegation should. Courts assess evidence. Magistrates can reject false or weak claims. Misuse concerns exist in every legal system, including laws used by men and laws used by women. The answer is not to deny an entire category of victims access to remedies. The answer is to design procedures that test claims fairly.
A gender-neutral law need not mean a gender-blind policy
The strongest argument against gender-neutral domestic violence reform is that it may flatten unequal realities. This risk is real. A woman facing violence in a patriarchal household may face barriers that a male victim usually does not face in the same way. These include economic dependence, dowry pressure, pregnancy, childcare burdens, sexual violence, social stigma and lack of safe housing. Law and policy must recognise those differences.
But recognising gendered patterns does not require excluding male victims from legal protection.
The United Kingdom’s Domestic Abuse Act 2021 offers one model. It defines domestic abuse without making the victim category gender-specific, while public policy still recognises that women are disproportionately affected. UK guidance, funding and service design can remain gender-responsive even when the legal definition is broad enough to cover men, women and people of other genders.
India need not copy that model wholesale. The social context differs. Caseloads differ. Institutions differ. But the principle is useful: a law can be gender-inclusive in coverage and gender-sensitive in implementation.
There are several possible routes for India.
One route is to amend the PWDVA definition of aggrieved person to include any person in a domestic relationship. That would create a single domestic violence civil protection law. It would also raise concerns about whether women’s remedies could be diluted in crowded magistrate courts.
A second route is to keep the PWDVA intact for women and create a parallel civil protection law for other domestic abuse victims. This may be politically easier, but it risks building a weaker, less used mechanism for men and other excluded victims.
A third route is to create a broader Domestic Abuse Protection Order framework that sits alongside existing laws. Under such a model, any victim could seek immediate restraint against violence, threats, stalking, coercive control or economic abuse. Women would still retain all PWDVA protections, shelters and schemes. Courts could direct cases into the right channel based on facts.
Whatever model Parliament chooses, three safeguards matter.
Sex-disaggregated data must be mandatory. Courts, police, helplines and service providers should record gender, relationship type, age, disability, severity and type of abuse. Without this, reform will produce claims but not knowledge.
Women-specific services must remain protected. Shelters, one-stop centres, women’s helplines and legal aid for women should not lose funds because male victims are recognised. Expanding recognition should mean adding capacity, not redistributing scarcity.
False and retaliatory complaints must be handled through evidence, not stereotypes. Courts should be alert to counter-litigation in matrimonial disputes. But the same standard should apply across genders. A male complainant should not be dismissed because he is male. A female complainant should not be doubted because misuse is alleged in the abstract.
The aim should be a law that sees patterns of power and control, not only the gender of the person making the complaint.
Parliament has the tools to close the silence
The Supreme Court’s response to petitioners, asking them to approach Parliament, points to the correct forum. A shift in domestic violence law would require legislative design, budgetary planning and service reform. Courts can interpret statutes. Parliament can redraw them.
A data-driven legislative process would not begin with slogans. It would begin with evidence.
India could commission a national study on domestic abuse across genders, with careful safeguards for privacy and safety. The study should measure physical, sexual, emotional and economic abuse. It should also measure frequency, injury, fear, coercive control, dependence and help-seeking behaviour. A single headline number will not be enough.
The government could also create a pilot support pathway for male victims, without disturbing women’s services. This could include:
a national referral directory of verified NGOs and legal aid centres
training for police on handling male complaints without mockery
mental health referral options for victims of domestic abuse
clear guidance on when ordinary criminal law, matrimonial law or senior citizens’ law may apply
anonymised data collection on calls, complaints and outcomes
Magistrates and legal services authorities could receive guidance on domestic abuse claims outside the PWDVA framework. That would not create rights by itself, but it would reduce confusion.
Law schools, bar associations and civil society groups can also help by changing the language of the debate. The current public conversation often swings between two errors. One side treats male victims as proof that women’s laws are unnecessary. The other treats every mention of male victims as an attack on women. Both positions block serious policy work.
The facts support a more precise position. Women are the primary victims of domestic violence in India. Women need strong, well-funded, women-specific protections. Some men also face domestic abuse and need a lawful route to safety. These statements can stand together.
The law can protect women and still stop erasing men
The PWDVA was not a mistake. It answered a real and continuing crisis. India still needs strong legal protection for women facing violence in homes, marriages and domestic relationships. Any reform that weakens that framework would do harm.
But the law also creates a category of invisible victims. A man abused by his wife or partner may have remedies under criminal or matrimonial law, but he does not have the domestic violence remedy that most closely matches the nature of the harm. He cannot enter the PWDVA as an aggrieved person. He cannot ask for its civil protections. He often cannot find a state helpline built for his situation.
The numbers we have suggest women face much higher levels of domestic violence. The numbers we have do not justify pretending male victims do not exist. In fact, the lack of a clear legal category makes the data weaker. People who are not recognised are less likely to report. People who do not report are less likely to appear in policy.
This is a legislative problem with a legislative answer. Parliament can preserve every protection women have under the PWDVA and still create a route for male victims to seek safety. It can make domestic abuse law more inclusive without making policy gender-blind. It can collect better data without denying gendered violence. It can add support without taking support away.
The real choice is not between women and men. The real choice is between a system that measures harm honestly and one that only counts the victims it already expected to find.
This article is for general information only and is not legal advice. Anyone facing violence or immediate danger should contact local emergency services, police, or a qualified legal professional.
