On an island steeped in contradiction, Jeremy Boissevain was one of the very first to pinpoint sex and puberty as taboo subjects to the Maltese, though even these pale in comparison to the thick air of omertà and shame surrounding domestic violence. While reports have been on the rise, this by no means gives us a clear indication of the actual numbers, but rather it reflects a slight change in the number of people coming forward. The facts remain that over 85 per cent of domestic violence remains unreported.

A few months back, I wrote an article about domestic violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was a simple enough offering: as far as I was concerned, there wasn’t much to object to, and yet, a few hours into the article being published, I received a message from an anonymous source telling me that marriage is an act of God and that basically by raising awareness about abuse, I was contributing to the breakdown of the family. It was an interesting, albeit repugnant, message to receive but it taught me something invaluable about the mindset of the man in the street: that they depend on our silence for their abuse to continue. We cannot allow this to happen.

A few days ago, the launch of the 16 days of activism against gender-based domestic abuse in the run-up to the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women took place and the comments under some articles announcing it would make your hair curl.

The facts remain that the vast majority of people who endure domestic violence are women

Apart from the fact that these articles always remain some of the least likely to be interacted with and shared by people, we had the usual brigade of men telling us that men suffer domestic violence too. I find these things as puzzling as when people say: “All lives matter” in answer to “Black lives matter”.

I don’t think it is up for debate to say that men also go through domestic violence; no one is disputing that, nor are they taking away from male survivor’s pain.  However, the facts remain that the vast majority of people who endure domestic violence are women and the fact that people write anything other than comments condemning this behaviour continues to trivialise an issue that the Maltese have historically always refused to touch with a barge pole.

After years of people being told to go back home and try to fix things with their husbands, it took us till this year to get a new unit within the police force to help with gender-based violence.

Lest we forget, the Maltese family model that was existent just one or two generations ago  saw the mother stay at home and raise children while financially depending on her husband for her and her family’s survival, and a society who has never been merciful of those who stray from the norm.

Instead of trying to find reasons to downplay the ugliness and brutality of domestic violence, we should be banding together to give people the space to feel more comfortable in coming forward with their grievances.

It is heart wrenching and hard enough to have to leave something which you have built and invested in, sometimes for years, without people in society wagging their fingers at you.

These people do not need your judgement; they need our support and understanding. It takes courage to stand alone, and as a society we should be reinforcing people, not looking the other way and stopping off our ears. None of us is free till all of us are free.