I recently came across an article stating that we have the lowest divorce rate in Europe, accompanied by the usual smattering of people congratulating themselves on being part of “Catholic Malta”. What struck me most, however, was the blinkered and naive way in which people still speak about relationships despite the recent horrific murders of women by their partners.

It’s bad enough when you see it online courtesy of the usual band of village idiots but even worse when you realise that your own institutions continue to seem to be unable to cater for the trials and tribulations that come with the changing face of Malta.

Just last week, I was speaking to several people who are going through impossibly hard times and it became increasingly evident that our system is entirely built around the premise that you will get married in your 20s, push out at least two children to fulfil your obligations and then stay married, happily or otherwise, till one of you dies.

I want to give you all a fictitious albeit extreme example so that you can understand how dire this country’s situation is for those brave enough to try to leave sometimes horrific situations.

You meet someone and fall in love but that person is controlling and abusive and you end up unable to work. You have a couple of children and get assaulted daily. You go to the police and file a report. Nothing much happens. You go back home and put up with it because you have nowhere else to go. You report your partner to the police repeatedly and eventually leave the marital home after the police get involved.

How can it be seen as anything less than cruel that our institutions deprive people of the ability to be able to move on in a timely manner?- Anna Marie Galea

You have nowhere to go, no money and no way to make money because you have little to no job experience. You sign up for free therapy to help you heal; the waiting list is long because NGOs have little to no resources to work with and exhausted caregivers who are not paid enough.

By the time your criminal case gets to court, two or three years have passed because, yet again, there aren’t enough resources to deal with people who haven’t won the relationship lottery. In the meantime, you spend your days running from largely unhelpful department to department, trying to get your post and government cheques not sent to your former partner, legal aid you can’t afford and trying to get a roof over your head.

It is a system that, knowingly or unwittingly, uses shame to subjugate people into staying in impossible circumstances and which is designed to punish those who couldn’t make it work despite their best efforts. It is a system that frays mental health and is instrumental in making the vulnerable nothing short of desperate.

How can it be seen as anything less than cruel that our institutions deprive people of the ability to be able to move on in a timely manner? Hundreds of people wake up daily carrying unspeakable anxieties and are deprived of healing old wounds because they have no choice but to wait things out.

If a nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its helpless, what does it say about us that we continue to ignore the obvious? Everything, really.