Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1485769
5 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 27 NOVEMBER 2022 anisms, including through panic buttons and monitoring of the offender through electronic tag- ging. On protection orders, it insists that government should step up efforts to monitor and enforce protection orders, including through protocols, regulation and technical means such as electronic tagging. A court had imposed a protec- tion order in favour of Bernice Cassar when she filed judicial proceedings against her killer last July. Protection orders typically impose restrictions and prohi- bitions on the person accused from approaching the victim, contacting the victim, or access- ing the same premises in which the victim lives or works. If the protection order imposed in favour of Bernice included any of these restrictions, her husband would have breached the order multiple times, with Bernice reporting each breach to the police. And yet, this was not enough. A complacent and inadequate system left Bernice at the mercy of the man who fathered her two children until the inevitable hap- pened. MATTHEW AGIUS BERNICE Cassar's murder has laid bare a raft of problems re- garding how domestic violence reports are handled, with the police's specialised section fac- ing an overwhelming caseload. Several problems with the sys- tem used by the police force to handle domestic violence re- ports show that these cases are not being prioritised. "Domestic violence reports are dealt with on a first-come first- served basis. They are not pri- oritised. So, minor reports over alimony are dealt with before that of a woman who had been beaten up by her partner," one officer, who spoke on the con- dition of anonymity, told Malt- aToday. Neither is it a simple matter of filing a domestic violence report, which has to be filed in person at the police headquarters. "There are often queues of people wait- ing to file DV reports outside the police depot," the officer said. And even with a fourth inspec- tor recently added to the Do- mestic Violence Unit, it still is expected to handle every single domestic violence report in Mal- ta, irrespective of the locality. The Domestic Violence Unit has become a chokepoint for cases caused by its overwhelm- ing caseload. That caseload is due in no small part to the wide-ranging definition of do- mestic violence at law, ranging from insults to attempted mur- der. The unit's inspectors are dele- gated cases that are punishable by over two years in prison, by roster. One inspector deals with cases of slight bodily harm, in- sults and other crimes punish- able by less than two years in prison. 'Minor' cases are dele- gated to a lower-ranked officer, usually a sergeant. But cases of harassment, griev- ous bodily harm, revenge porn and other serious crimes in re- lationships must be investigated by one of the four inspectors. Additionally, the same DV unit has to assist in murder investi- gations, on top of its workload. "It's impossible to work healthi- ly," the officer remarked. There is nobody to help people understand the repercussions of filing a domestic violence report, like the effect on family relation- ships, added the officer. "Then one fine day, you are summonsed and must give your account in court. The victim ends up questioning whether it was a good idea filing a report in the first place," he said. Domestic violence investiga- tions take time, and in the cases where complainants forgive the assailant, the police work lead- ing up to that prosecution often feels like a wasted effort. "It is so impossible to keep up, and the Domestic Violence Unit often needs the help of district police stations." Under the Gender-based Vi- olence and Domestic Violence Act, domestic violence means "all acts or omissions in- cluding verbal, physical, sexu- al, psychological or economic violence causing physical and, or moral harm or suffering, in- cluding threats of such acts or omissions, coercion, or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, that occur within the family or domestic unit, whether or not the per- petrator shares or has shared the same residence with the victim, and shall include children who are witnesses of violence within the family or domestic unit." Although law gives examples of what is considered a "family or domestic unit," these exam- ples are so vast in scope that even a fight between cousins falls within the definition of do- mestic violence. Police treat domestic violence cases on first-come, first-served basis Violence on women: why men and boys matter James Buhagiar Men Against Violence THERE is a cost associated with being a woman in almost any society - the price some women have to pay, often in their mental health and wellbeing, sometimes in bruises, sometimes in broken bones, sometimes in blood and, way too often, with their life too. It seems that violence on women is ac- cepted and expected, often even by women themselves. We normalised it, incorporated it into daily routine and we are letting it pass us by, without even noticing. We accept it as the "natural" order of things. To an extent that we know, in advance, with almost mathematical precision, coun- try per country, how many will be abused, raped or killed because statistics, the fig- ures haven't changed much in decades. In trying to change such predictions, we need to shake the foundations of the cul- ture that permits and accepts all of this, rebuild it from scratch and create society that validates women's existence - violence free and equal. How do we do that? Firstly, we need to stop blaming the vic- tim, even partially, for what happened to them and we need to start asking the right questions. The questions like what she was wearing, with that attitude, with that psychological warfare, why did she drink, why was she there so late at night, why was she in the company of men, why didn't she leave, why did she forgive him, why didn't she protect her children from violence - put onus on the victim, the person with least power, to take action rather than asking the question we need an answer to: why do men assault, beat, rape and kill the women they profess to love and what can we do to change that? Asking wrong questions removes us, the bystanders, the society from the equation and ignores the fact that we, the society, the system, are in much stronger position to take action than she is. Which brings us to the second thing that ideally, we do. We have to get rid of the idea that do- mestic violence and intimate partner vio- lence is the private business of the people in question. If around 26% women in Malta will expe- rience some sort of violence by their part- ner in their lifetime; that means that out of every four women you know, one has been or will be a victim. That makes it very per- sonal to me and it should be to everyone else. Thirdly, for many years and in most of the countries, the efforts in dealing with domestic and intimate partner violence have been concentrated to protecting the victim and prosecuting/dealing with the perpetrator. This is as it should be, because those are the immediate needs. As we have seen in the latest femicide of Bernice Cas- sar, the system as it is now, is insufficient. We need to invest more in strengthening and bettering our responses to reports of domestic violence. The thing is, this does not deal with the culture that accepts and normalises vio- lence. That is the reason why the numbers remain the same, year in year out. We need to tackle the problem at its core, through violence prevention programmes that have to become part and parcel of our education curriculum. We need to look at the long- term solution which is prevention. This leads me to the last, but not least point. We need more work in dismantling patriarchal power structures by working with men and boys and challenging harm- ful and rigid notions of masculinity, for gender and social justice and reduction and elimination of violence in our society. We need to stop victim blaming. We need to acknowledge that solutions to the personal are collective. We need to work on preventing it before it happens and then require everyone, including men and boys, to pull the rope in the same direction. Then and only then things will change. We need to deal with the culture that accepts and normalises violence… we need to dismantle patriarchal power… we need men and boys to pull the same rope