Women's rights champion Lara Dimitrijevic traces her personal mission back to her work at detention centres and the family court – where she came face-to-face with the suffering of women.

When Lara Dimitrijevic rebelled in her late teens, it was against her family's affinity for the legal profession. That identity bonded every member of her family. Her father was a lawyer, her mother a procurator, her two siblings became lawyers. Lara broke ranks. She decided to read philosophy and classical studies at university.

After a semester, she dropped out and began to teach English to foreign students. She became pregnant and married her boyfriend – Aleksander Dimitrijevic – with whom she would eventually have three children, the youngest now seven. (She’s quick to point out, in that streak of individuality or non-conformity, that they married mostly because it was difficult for him, a Serb, to maintain a visa, and not so much because it was expected of her by family or society due to the pregnancy.)

Yet her familial affinities reawakened when her second child was two years old  and she got into university again to study law. “Then we had our third child,” Lara recounted, “around the time I was finishing my law degree. I wanted to set up my legal practice, and we made a decision that Aleksander would quit his full-time job as an accountant, and I would be the chief breadwinner.”

TIMESTALK:'Gentlemen's clubs are prostitution establishments,' says Dimitrijevic

“He is the more flexible parent – he is now a researcher at the university. He plays the larger role in the day-to-day life of the children, he does the shopping, he takes the children to activities…”

A momentary pause, shadows of thoughts scudding over her large, deep-set eyes: “It doesn’t affect my youngest in any way that she spends most of her time with her father. I make it a point to say that, because people say, ‘Aren’t mothers what children need?’ It’s a prevalent social construct that puts the father as the breadwinner and the mother as the carer – in our case, experiencing a switchover in roles, I can say that those constructs do not apply.”

Abortion debate

Dr Dimitrijevic has been challenging other larger societal constructs in her public role as the founder, and prime mover, of the Women’s Rights Foundation (WRF), the dynamic NGO for women in Malta that she set up in 2013.

WRF entered the national consciousness last year when it organised a clamorous protest in Valletta and later successfully campaigned for the introduction of the morning-after pill. And, in recent weeks, WRF called for a debate about reproductive rights, including abortion, a call that has provoked a vehement uproar.

Did she have something to add to that call for a debate on abortion, I asked when we met at her home in Ta’ Xbiex. And did she feel that, in a country where most people equate abortion with murder, even calling for a debate was an act of folly? 

She replied: “We have discussed controversial issues as a society in the past few years, so I think we are at a point where we can similarly have a discussion on abortion.”

Seemingly mindful of the effrontery of broaching the issue of abortion in Maltese society, her words were measured, yet with no hint of vulnerability. Her kind and expectant eyes belie the public image of WRF as an organisation that is strident and provocative.

Prostitution in Malta is everywhere now, but hidden behind veneers: in massage parlours, in gentlemen’s clubs, in hotels, in illegal brothels... It is linked to human trafficking

It would be grotesque to define WRF solely by its controversial campaigns and guerrilla media techniques. Behind the scenes, Lara and her colleagues spend a lot of time dredging through paperwork and grimly assisting victims of domestic violence. She and two other lawyers – Rebecca Muscat and Stephanie Caruana – offer free legal advice to victims of domestic violence, gender discrimination, rape and human trafficking, as well as reproductive health, and, in the case of victims in shelters and migrants, they even represent them legally for free. This year, WRF has also done a lot of campaigning on gender quotas and the gender pay gap.

Dr Dimitrijevic’s schedule is mind-spinning. In the days before we met, she had been in Brussels to take part in a conference on the Istanbul Convention (whose provisions are now in the process of being enshrined into law in Malta); and after our meeting, she was due to hold a long conference call with organisations in South America.

Flaws in legal system

What compels her to dedicate so much of her time fighting for women’s rights?

“I can’t stand injustices. And maybe that’s because I had a good upbringing and because my personal situation is good.

“I was never discriminated against in my upbringing. But I realised that the way I grew up was not the norm. Then I began working in a detention centre with immigrant women and children, and that really affected me – the abuse they suffered made me miserable. And when I started dealing with family affairs in court, especially in the area of domestic violence, I realised many women are suffering. It is these things that prompted me to set up the foundation.”

As a criminal lawyer, she specialises in family law, human rights, human trafficking and violence against women. On all these issues she holds articulate viewpoints and perceptive analyses about the flaws within the courts.

On the Family Court, for example, when I asked her about the widespread dismay about the delays and stasis of its processes, she said: “I feel that there should be more professionals working within the Family Court structure, such as child psychologists. The needs of the family are very complex. It will help everyone in the system, because we, the lawyers and judges, we are experts in law and not in the complexities of families, especially broken families.”

Prostitution victims

We talked about the government’s apparent intention to legalise prostitution, something that WRF have a clear stance on.

“Prostitution is no longer what we used to see in Testaferrata Street. Prostitution in Malta nowadays is everywhere, but it is hidden behind veneers. It is found in massage parlours, in gentlemen’s clubs, in hotels, in illegal brothels, many of which operate from flats all over Malta. And this kind of prostitution is linked to human trafficking, so for us the two – prostitution and human trafficking – are intertwined. Many prostitutes are victims of human trafficking – they could be tricked, they could be underpaid or exploited, they are somehow entrapped, they are not free to make choices. Many of these women are victims of circumstance.”

Which is why I suggested some sort of regularisation or legalisation would tackle the culture of exploitation.

The foundation feels Malta should adopt the Nordic model. “That is, criminalise the customers, decriminalise prostitution, and support the victim [the prostitute].”

To help downtrodden women, that’s Dr Dimitrijevic’s calling.

“It’s something I feel very passionate about. I dedicate much time to the foundation. I work on weekends. But then, paradoxically, the constricted time I dedicate to my family is more qualitative. For example, we make it a point to have dinner together as a family every evening – at around 7.30 or 8pm. Aleksander cooks on weeknights, I cook on weekends. I like to cook Indian, Lebanese and Moroccan. And we don’t have a TV at home.”

Her activism has given her family a new sense of identity – something different from the lawyerly identity of the family she grew up in – a sense of purpose for a family dedicated to furthering women’s rights.

Her eldest son, Ivan, has recently redesigned WRF’s new, funky website. And Aleksander is reading for a PhD in misogyny and masculinity, as well as heading the NGO Men Against Violence.

For more information about the Women’s Rights Foundation, go to www.wrf.org.mt.

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