The murder of mother-of-two Bernice Cassar was all over the news last month when the nation woke up to find that yet another woman had been killed, allegedly by her ex-partner, six months after she left their matrimonial home.
A few weeks later, Times of Malta told the seemingly unrelated story of a woman who cannot register her nine-month-old baby because of a legal loophole that assumes the child is the offspring of her ex-husband – an abusive man she has been estranged from for four years.
She had a baby from her partner nine months ago and there are DNA results to prove it. By then, she had not yet obtained a separation because her ex refused to sign the required documentation. In the blinkered eyes of the law, this illogically makes the baby his child.
The choice she had? Make a false declaration and face a legal process to change the name of the father later or leave her child unregistered until someone “high up” on the decision-making ladder wakes up and does something to address this reality.
This is no one-off. The children’s commissioner said there were other, similar cases.
As in the case of Cassar, the story of this woman shows yet again that domestic abuse does not end the second a woman leaves her partner and walks out of the door and neither on the day separation proceedings are started or even finalised.
Often, abusive partners continue the abuse from afar. Not by hitting, threatening or insulting but by ignoring, refusing to cooperate and essentially stalling so that the partner is unable to move on. They want to make her life miserable. And they succeed.
They know the law gives them rights as husbands and parents and they use that to their advantage.
This issue has been flagged up by the Malta Woman’s Lobby. It called on the government to update laws that lead to situations where abusers hold women, especially mothers, “hostage” by refusing to sign certain documents.
Those documents range from separation papers to school extra-curricular forms. Contesting the partner’s refusal comes with legal fees.
After Cassar’s murder, the government pledged to look into the system that failed her and allocate a second magistrate to deal with the domestic violence case backlog.
But the government needs to be looking deeper. This is not only about stopping murders. It must be about preventing abuse on all levels.
A deep dive into the law is needed. A legal reality check is long overdue.
Created to protect well-meaning couples who separate, the laws are instead leading to more abuse and pain. They are weaponised by the abusers for manipulation and control. It’s less about claiming a right and more about depriving the partner out of spite, revenge and power.
Perhaps abusive parents ought to be stripped of their decision-making rights.
Perhaps the courts ought to listen more to what the children want. It’s a sensitive, thorny issue but it must be tackled.
Barely one month has passed since the murder and people’s attention has shifted to other news stories, as it tends to do.
The story of the nine-month-old’s mother is also drifting out.
But for those who have to beg an abuser to sign a piece of paper – because that’s what the law says – to be able to send their child to school for a few extra hours so they can work to make ends meet, it is an everyday story which lawmakers need to start reading.