Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/700383
maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 6 JULY 2016 7 MIRIAM DALLI THE Men Against Violence coali- tion has condemned the brutal kill- ing of Eleanor Mangion Walker, the 33-year-old mother from Swieqi, who is believed to have been mur- dered by her estranged husband, Andrew Mangion. By the time of writing, a nation- wide hunt was still underway for the 40-year-old man who appears to have disappeared into thin air af- ter Mangion Walker was killed and dumped in a Qormi warehouse on Sunday night. The death of Eleanor, mother of a nine-year-old girl, has shocked many, not least the family and friends who knew both of them. "Let's talk about men," the Men Against Violence NGO said on Facebook. "Let us talk about what drives men to control, abuse, beat and kill the woman they profess to love. Let us talk about what makes men think that they own the wom- an, her mind, body and soul […]" The NGO said that, as men, they did not want to let the situation re- main unchanged: "Let us talk about what we can do, as men, so that the next generation of boys growing up in our society, will do better by women in their lives." Indeed, a look back at the history of murders in Malta involving wom- en will find that many have been killed by their husbands, partners, an ex or a scorned lover. A woman, as the 1999 death of 76-year-old Maria Buhagiar had shown, can also be fatally shot by her brother over a burnt toast and an untended jersey. Whatever the relation to the per- petrator, the absolute majority of femicides in Malta have seen wom- en murdered by those they loved, or once loved. In his book 'Femicide: The murder of women in Malta', crime historian Edward Attard found that there were 131 cases of femicide between 1800 and the end of 2015. More recently, data published in parliament showed that 35 women have been murdered in Malta and Gozo between 1999 and 2015. Similarly to Mangion Walker's death, Hungarian mother-of-two Yvette Gajda was killed by her part- ner in 2012 in her apartment in St Paul's Bay. Gajda had been stabbed more than 40 times with a pair of scissors. During the same year, a for- mer police officer shot his estranged wife three times on the Saqajja steps. The woman, Maria Cutajar, had survived the attack. During the same month, a Moroc- can mother-of-two, 40, was found dead in a pool of blood in her bed- room and the police said there ap- peared to be no foul play. In September 2012 as well, a 44-year-old MMDNA nurse, Jac- queline Depasquale, was stabbed 12 times by her aggressor but survived the attack. Noel Calleja would later threaten to jump off the roof from the Farsina Housing Estate in Qor- mi when he was finally traced by the police. In 2011, 28-year-old Kalinina Boube¬kova, was found murdered in a Xemxija apartment. Her mother was the prime suspect. A few months later, 38-year-old Irena Abadzhieva was found dead in her Qawra apartment and her mutilated body was in an advanced state of decomposition. Her killer is suspected to have fled the country. In 2010, mother-of-one Christine Sammut was fatally shot by her for- mer boyfriend, Kenneth Gafà. He was last year jailed to 35 years after admitting to the murder. Sammut had suffered extensive gunshot in- juries to her neck, chest and hands after Gafà shot her twice at close range with a shotgun as she was sit- ting in her car outside a Zebbiegh bar, waiting to pick up a friend. In 2009, 62-year-old Maria The- resa Vella was stabbed 10 times out- side her residence in Cospicua by the former partner of her daughter. Clive Farrugia was jailed 40 years. Roger Agius was jailed for 31 years in 2012 after admitting to murder- ing his estranged wife at a Tarxien bus stop in 2009 with a butcher's knife. Catherine Agius, 40, had just stepped off a bus after work, and was heading for her mother's home where she was living with the cou- ple's three children. Ukrainian Sergii Nykytiuk was jailed for 25 years for the murder of his wife Liudmila on November 8, 2009. Jurors were told that death was a slow process for the 35-year- old woman whose body was found in an empty elevator shaft of an apartment in St Paul's Bay. News Femicide: when violence takes a woman's life 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Women murdered in Malta since 1999 Source: parliamentary questions 'Let us talk about what we can do, as men, so that the next generation of boys will do better by women in their lives' Labour newspaper opposition MP position". "Portelli also said that Ab- ela's experience in planning and heritage weren't relevant to this role," the article read. However, Portelli refuted this as a blatant misquotation, noting that she had delivered her speech before environ- ment minister Jose Herrera had even announced Abela's appointment. Indeed, while Portelli had warned of political discrimi- nation within ERA – with ex- perienced people overlooked for promotion – she never mentioned anyone by name or position. In his ruling yesterday, Speaker Farrugia noted that Portelli had never mentioned Abela in her speech and called on Kullhadd to print a retrac- tion in its next edition.