As the bombs continue to rain on Gaza and our world leaders continue to sit back and allow yet another genocide to take place, here, in Malta, we are objecting to letting 17-year-olds drive.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think a good chunk of people in Malta should have been given a licence to begin with, 17 or otherwise, but if the State believes that 16-year-olds in this country can vote for the future of their country and become responsible for whole towns, then it becomes harder to justify not allowing them to take a driving test too.

It would be nice if we, at least, tried to be logical and consistent at some point  but that all goes out the window when votes are involved. Your voice seems to be only as important as your polling choices.

Another group of people whose voice always seems to end up in the background to devastating effect are domestic violence victims. We have had documented proof of how domestic violence cases are not given the attention and gravitas they deserve for years but it was only Bernice Cassar’s tragic death last year that really blew a lid on how dire things are.

When her husband allegedly held a knife to her throat, her case was classified as “medium risk” by social workers. She had filed numerous police reports and nothing was done. The cruellest irony of all was that a thick blue file full of documents relating to her plight was recovered from the very car she was shot in. All that evidence and it still couldn’t get her the protection she deserved.

And now, this week, we are reminded again how slow change is in this country when an MP went on TV and stated that if you file a domestic violence claim with the court now, your first court appointment will be scheduled at the end of January 2025. It beggars belief.

There is no point in us holding exhibitions and spearheading 16-day awareness campaigns if nothing is being done to tangibly change a slow, creaking, draconian system- Anna Marie Galea

How can anyone who has met a victim of domestic violence, sat with them, felt their trauma and seen their scared eyes sentence them to a year of uncertainty and instability like this? A year’s wait is not only not good enough, it’s a travesty. It makes perpetrators bolder and gives them time to cook up new ways to torture. It makes victims feel unseen and unheard. It makes people feel like they have nowhere to turn and that nothing can be done to help them. It facilitates a culture of suffering in silence. It takes herculean courage to speak out and this should be rewarded by processes being fast and effective instead of domestic violence victims feeling like they’ve been punished twice – once by the perpetrator and another time by the unhelpful system.

There is no point in us holding exhibitions and spearheading 16-day awareness campaigns if nothing is being done to tangibly change a slow, creaking, draconian system that still thinks everybody is playing happy families with their white picket fences and two perfect children.

We need more resources to be poured into the right places – that’s where our tax money should be going, not into making our politicians fat. Our victims don’t need more awareness, they need swift action.