Lawyers at a seminar on domestic violence heard about a child who was sat at a table by her father, given a gavel and asked to choose between him and her mother.
The father was very eloquent and she would get upset at her mother, eventually bullying her to submit to what the father said so the parents would stop arguing.
“Children do not just witness domestic violence but are centrally involved and, sometimes, try to intervene to stop the violence or are coerced to join in the violence and take sides,” Clarissa Sammut Scerri told the lawyers.
The head of department at the University of Malta’s Faculty of Social Wellbeing shared insight gleaned from interviews with women brought up within a domestic violence environment.
Research showed that the effect of domestic violence on children was big, with a wide range of psychological, emotional, social and academic issues, a higher risk of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
In the case mentioned above, the child was at first terrified of her father, who used to beat both her and the mother. However, she eventually ended up identifying with him, feeling that her mother seemed weaker.
Dr Sammut Scerri shared several of the women’s recollections, helping lawyers understand the complexities of domestic violence.
During the seminar, organised by the Chamber of Advocates and the Commission on Domestic Violence, lawyers raised concerns that children were voiceless, inadequately listened to and lacked protection. Some were even coerced into lying under oath.
Mental health services’ managing psychologist Joan Camilleri spoke of various kinds of abuse, including gas-lighting, a form of manipulation that seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a person, making them question their own memory, perception and sanity.
She walked lawyers through the process victims often go through, from before the abuse starts to after they do something about the violence.
When a survivor steps into a lawyer’s office, she might still be wondering whether it is worthwhile to proceed.
“You start to feel like you’re walking on quicksand but the clients are not refraining from making a decision because they are being capricious. They’re not making decisions because they cannot,” she said, adding that clients questioned the outcome of their decisions.
She urged lawyers to refer clients to counselling and support services because that was where they got help to become more aware and motivated or assume personal responsibility and emotional effective change.
Maria Mangion, who leads Appoġġ’s domestic violence services, encouraged lawyers themselves to seek support if they experienced domestic violence.
She noted it sometimes took more than three hours to support a person agreeing to file a report. She warned against rushing victims into leaving the relationship and house because of ensuing repercussions.
When Appoġġ did recommend leaving, this was done after a risk assessment and the issue of a safety report. It was not in favour of asking victims to leave home but, sometimes, it had to recommend the survivors to move into a shelter.
Referring to the cycle of violence that at times led victims to leave and then return to the abusive relationship, she noted that, in the beginning, with the building of tension, victims often felt they were walking on eggshells.
The violence that followed could even lead victims to consider killing themselves. Things would then quiet down and the partners made amends and all seemed to be going well. There were instances where perpetrators themselves sought Appoġġ’s services for perpetrators but eventually dropped out and the cycle started again, Ms Mangion said.