The media has a powerful role in shaping public perception about domestic violence and gender-based violence. Coverage of domestic violence incidents can raise awareness, facilitate understanding of the phenomenon and mobilise communities to reject it.

At its worst, however, it can reinforce harmful norms of victim-blaming, mislead the public on the origins and prevalence of domestic violence and inflict secondary abuse on those affected by it.

Similarly, chaotic human life simmers beneath the clean numbers and polished graphs of statistical reports, which are useful but, by their nature,  only divulge a macro perspective on  complex phenomena.  

This type of data is indeed important for policymakers – that one in every four Maltese women experience domestic abuse in their lifetime, for example,  and that the number of domestic violence cases reported to the police in 2021 is 1,741, constituting a record high. 

The value of these statistics can become a more powerful tool for governments, however, when triangulated with qualitative data about the phenomenon and its many manifestations.

Consideration of people’s biographies and realities can facilitate the design, implementation and management of more socially just, gender-equal measures and policies and fairer, more effective use of language in public discourses surrounding the lived experiences of domestic violence and gender-based abuse. 

It is the stories of the women who have experienced domestic violence and gender-based violence themselves that should guide us in our work to bring about the desired change in society – change that truly impacts all women, whoever they are, wherever they live  and whatever their circumstances. Narratives that women in these situations generously shared with me include the following (far from comprehensive) often intersecting realities:

Poverty: “I couldn’t escape him because I had nowhere to go. My family were struggling financially and there was no one else I knew, so I was basically on my own and had to keep going back to him as I had no other way. People say ‘you need to leave’ but it’s not that easy.”

Human trafficking (sic): “And then she take me to the flat of one of these man and I thought we were going clean or something. And then he say: ‘Why you stay there?’ I say: ‘Why?’ And he say: ‘Come with us in the bed.’ ‘Why,’ he say, ‘It’s like you don’t know why. Ejja remove your clothes because I don’t have much time because I have to go’.”

The assault of self-worth: “My sister and I grew up thinking that we didn’t deserve any better. So as soon as we found someone – it wasn’t to escape, no. We didn’t get married to escape – but as soon as we found someone who cared a little bit, we assumed that was enough”.

Consideration of people’s realities can facilitate the design, implementation and management of more socially just, gender-equal measures and policies- Audrey Friggieri

Upbringing: “My father was an alcoholic, a very violent man. I had relationships that were not so right, I was into substances, lived with a man who degraded me, put me down, kicked me when I was pregnant, tried to strangle me, threatened to slit my throat ‘like a pig’.”

“My dad was highly irrational, very unpredictable – anything that went wrong he blamed my mum – so my mum got it. As children growing up, we learned to behave, for the simple reason to prevent my mum from getting hurt.”

Mental health: “I dreaded the moment when the school bell rang for me to go home. And in primary school I had problems with my stomach. The doctor, even though he suspected the reason, used to decide that I would have to spend two or three days at home, which for me was even worse than going to school with my stomach problem. This is just the tip of the iceberg.”

Addictions: “I come home from work and find a missing table, a missing chest of drawers. And you’re frightened, you’re in a corner. Once he sold everything in the house – I had to buy everything from scratch.”

“He came with a paper for me to sign for a bank loan. He said he wanted to install a satellite. ‘Why,’ I asked. ‘We need to buy a bedroom for our son.’ He beat me up – the children crying and screaming and then I signed. The satellite never came. He had gambled all the money away. We meant nothing to him.”

Precarity and vulnerability: (Sic): “A friend of mine called me: ‘Come to Malta to take care of my daughter so I can go to work.’ And then I come, for two weeks it was good and then her husband said: ‘oh, she is good for nothing, she only take care of our daughter, she don’t bring money in the home. Either she marry my friend or she have to leave!’  I told him: ‘I don’t want to marry your friend!’

(Sic): “Then, the following night, I was taking their daughter for a walk in her pushchair and when we come back, I see all my belongings outside of the door. He take the baby from me and told me: ‘Ċaw... I sat at the bus stop ... I  didn’t have work to go, I didn’t speak English, I didn’t know nobody else, I have no money on me, didn’t have documents, not even telephone, nothing.

“‘Then there was a man, he just passed and told me: ‘Why you are here crying? It is too late and it is dangerous.’

“I looked at him and asked him: ‘Where to go?’”

Audrey Friggieri is Commissioner on Gender-based violence and Domestic Violence.