We never knew Paulina Dembska. She was another among a thousand faces we’d see walking by, a woman who came to Malta to work, leading a quiet, normal life and fed stray cats in her free time.
That life would be assaulted, raped and strangled out of its existence on the second morning of 2022. Her murder shook most of the nation out of its already sombre New Year’s festivities and, by time, as the sickening details of Paulina’s gruesome death started to emerge, the anger of thousands would swell. The vigil in Sliema saw a huge, silent crowd turning up not only to pay Paulina its respects but to demand an end to all this.
It is only obvious, in the era of social media empires where content is always ‘king’, that the outpour of anger would slowly mutate into the game of finger pointing. I’ll pitch in gladly because calls for ‘prudent comment’ are hypocritical, considering we have, collectively as a nation, crucified anyone and everyone before being found guilty, especially of having opinions. Therefore, I’m at a loss whenever public opinion is asked to refrain from directing its anger at yet another femicide in Malta.
Silence favours the oppressor, as a colleague in our student wing pointed out recently. More so when this femicide is being pinned on anything under the sun, as the headlines of recent days tell us that cannabis and homosexuality have also waded into the extended debate, along with hasty judgements on mental health. These are but convenient distractions, considering the apparent brotherhood between the main suspect and a ‘religious’ sect with a clear homophobic agenda.
Despite my unrepentantly dim view of such figures and of other men who speak on behalf of ‘God’ (I’m told the temperature under a few collars at the Curia has also risen in the last few days), there are other, real culprits for Paulina’s murder. So many of them we’d easily run out of fingers to point.
For one, the refusal to acknowledge and call this a femicide would be passing Paulina’s murder as something ‘that just happened’, as a follower of Gordon Manché put it (TVM gave this sect more prominence than the issue of femicide itself but I forget the national broadcaster isn’t here to educate anymore), and that would be letting a lot of people off many hooks not only for Paulina’s death but for all those women murdered before her. It’s a truly tragic list that brings together women of different ages, social backgrounds and cultures together – in death.
They don’t deserve to be just a statistic. And neither should any woman.
Shifting or distorting the context in which Paulina’s murder happened would mean ignoring the deep-seated cultural malaise that has been allowed to fester freely, starting from the latent, institutionalised sexism in the institutions and businesses (testament to which is the salary gap), via the stereotypes and currents of victim shaming that the media, wittingly or less, tends to reinforce.
Victim shaming, too, has become a tactic used by prominent lawyers defending alleged sex offenders, with the use of soundbites thrown as live bait for column inches.
This is no country for women- Wayne Flask
In this regard, the Council of Europe has harshly condemned our judiciary and law enforcement in a damning report issued in 2020. Among other shortcomings, the Council of Europe accused the authorities of insensitivity in treating cases of domestic violence and other forms of abuse, where the victims are made to recount their harrowing experiences in front of different audiences, thus having to relive the trauma each and every time.
Court sentences, sometimes handed down by women, continue to beggar belief. Perhaps the law is a patriarchal bison, rather than the meek ass.
Sadly, there was no outcry and no follow-up, no calls for a Florence Commission to ensure women in Malta are protected and given dignity by the legal framework.
That same protection that has not been afforded to two pro-choice activists, also members of my group, who were told by a cowboy with profound ‘pro-life values’ that “they should be tied together, face to face, and shot with the same bullet”.
There was none of the speed in prosecuting and delivering judgment shown elsewhere, say, a pensioner threatening an MP.
There was no condemnation of such threats from political and religious authorities or from the ‘pro-life’ grandees in their ‘networks’ or ‘foundations’; indeed this kind of hate speech directed at women is conveniently ignored.
Just as these quarters, identifiable in the broad church of opponents to the Equality Bill, have yet to voice some righteous Catholic anger at Paulina’s femicide, because, so far, there hasn’t been anything more than an uneasy whimper. I understand this church is broad indeed but, for some reason, when it comes to condemning (or even acknowledging) femicide, domestic violence, hate speech or any abuse on women, they’d rather not speak.
This is no country for women. The political system is dominated by men and, to this day, it is as yet inconceivable for a woman to run for party leadership. Men in the parties’ electoral dungeons applied some make-up: electoral quotas. This means increasing female representation in parliament by topping up seats with women, instead of instilling culture change across all spheres of public life. Thousands of women who won’t get a seat at the table will have to make do with the scraps falling off it.
To the women in parliament, and to those who will be elected via the quotas: come together across party lines and engage with feminists in civil society. Work together on eradicating prejudice and discrimination, that very misogyny that dominates thought among your colleagues, electorate and society.
It’s the least we owe to all the victims of femicide.