Maltese courts have so far never ordered male domestic violence perpetrators to seek help from Appoġġ, according to sexualised violence experts.

Marceline Naudi, head of the Gender Studies Department at the University (left) with London Metropolitan University professor Liz Kelly. Photo: Mark Zammit CordinaMarceline Naudi, head of the Gender Studies Department at the University (left) with London Metropolitan University professor Liz Kelly. Photo: Mark Zammit Cordina

Marceline Naudi, head of the Gender Studies Department at the University, said the domestic violence law enacted in 2006 gave the courts the possibility of issuing a treatment order for domestic abuse perpetrators. The service aims to help perpetrators become accountable of their actions, understand their behaviour and take control.

“One of our greatest disappointments is that this tool is not being used,” Dr Naudi said.

While accompanying London Metropolitan University professor Liz Kelly, who was in Malta to deliver a public lecture, on a visit to Appoġġ, Dr Naudi said the staff informed them that not a single court-mandated treatment order had yet come their way.

Last year, the police received 1,048 reports of domestic violence, compared to 1,024 in 2013, Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela said in Parliament. About 778 cases had been taken before the family court in 2013 and 784 in 2014.

One of our greatest disappointments is that this tool is not being used

About a month ago, a domestic violence perpetrator was issued with a treatment order, Dr Naudi said. There was great excitement among the Appoġġ team until they realised that the written order did not specify that the person had to be treated at the men’s service unit.

Prof. Kelly’s visit follows the recent murder of Silvana Muscat, whose estranged husband is being considered as the prime suspect. Ms Muscat had filed three domestic violence reports. After the third report, he was arraigned under arrest and sentenced to six months imprisonment suspended for two years and fined €100.

Prof. Kelly said patterns of coercive control needed to be better understood.

“Men who use jealous surveillance when women leave them are the most dangerous. We need to understand differently what the threats are.

“Repeatedly, in the UK you have cases like this. What they tell us is that the police are much less good at assessing women’s safety or danger than the women themselves are. We need to listen to them.

“Why did she go to the police three times? Because she knew that something had changed; she felt a sense of threat and danger.”

Prof. Kelly spearheaded the Mirabal project in the UK consisting of research into domestic violence perpetrator programmes.

The researchers looked at a series of accredited perpetrator programmes and shadowed 100 women from the period the men began attending the programmes through to 12 months after the programmes ended.

Interestingly, Prof. Kelly noted, for the vast majority, the physical and the sexual violence stopped. The controlling behaviour, however, was more complicated and still continued. That was a challenge such programmes needed to focus on.

“By the end of the programme, the men also learnt to have a wider understanding of violence because the programme had challenged them to see that stamping, shouting and having the last word were also forms of control, power and intimidation.”

The men, she continued, went through a process of thinking and of being challenged, not only by their facilitators but also by other men in the group.

Domestic abuse perpetrators would have developed a whole set of habits; the programmes would then teach them techniques to interrupt those habitual responses.

The 26- to 30-week programme resulted in a long process of men thinking, deciding and then acting.

Asked how cases such as Ms Muscat’s murder could be prevented, Prof. Kelly replied that the entire society needed to change its community norms.

“We’re coming at things the wrong way if we take preventing domestic violence homicides as a benchmark. These are the hardest things to prevent because these are the very determined, jealous, angry men for whom a court order does not have any influence on their behaviour.”

Instead, one should look at the very first signs of domestic violence, which was not necessarily physical abuse. As a society, everybody – the police, the court, relatives or work colleagues – must take a stand and denounce such violence, Prof. Kelly said.

“Only then can we start changing a culture that makes excuses for these men. We still live in a culture which accepts this violence; which says, like many family courts do, that you can demean, diminish and destroy your female partner but you’d still be a ‘good father’. That is not an acceptable standard.”

A possible solution was for the police to be allowed to pass on the details of domestic violence victims and perpetrators to the appropriate Appoġġ services, which would then enable them to make proactive contact, Dr Naudi said.

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