Taipei - A Taiwan city has opened a crisis centre for men who have been victims of an increasing incidence of assaults by women against their male partners, Taiwan radio said on Saturday.

The Kaohsiung City Government has opened the Men's Crisis Centre as the number of cases of wives assaulting husbands has risen from 730 in 2006 to 823 in 2007.

This accounted for 12.7 and 13.8 per cent of all the family violence cases reported in 2006 and 2007 respectively, Broadcasting Corp of China (BCC) reported.

Kaohsiung, in south Taiwan, is Taiwan's second-largest city, an industrial base and site of the Kaohsiung Harbor.

The centre has opened a hotline for men to report domestic violence and seek help. To avoid embarrassing the callers, social workers who operate the hotline are all men.

Yeh Yu-ju, director of the Kaohsiung Home Violence Centre, said attacks on husbands had always existed, but people did not often hear of them because many victims feared losing face. (dpa)