Domestic Violence and Abuse and Hidden Groups

DVA affects many people irrespective of their social characteristics, backgrounds and experiences. Despite this diversity, many people are often absent from mainstream discourse, research, policy and practice on domestic violence and abuse (DVA) because of processes of invisibilisation or systemic exclusion that result from practices or structures that uphold systemic exclusion (Wilkerson et al., Qual Health Res 24:561–574, 2014). This chapter turns the lens towards some of these hidden, and hard-to-reach, communities, to enable the reader to see beyond the dominant picture of DVA to illustrate that DVA is a complex global phenomenon affecting a concerningly high number of individuals and families, occurring across cultural, ethnic, religious, age and gender boundaries. The chapter sets out knowledge about DVA in relation to the following groups of people who can be considered to be hard-to-reach including: lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans and queer (LGBTQ) communities; male victims; women with learning disabilities; black and ethnic minority (BME) communities.