Following the 2014 ratification of the Council
of Europe (CoE) Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence
against women and domestic violence, Malta committed itself to strengthen national
legislation and reorganise current services in the field of Violence Against
Women (VAW). A set of amendments, intended to update national legislation in
line with the standards of the Convention, were launched for public
consultation in 2016, which were eventually passed into law in May 2018.
Breaking the Cycle of Violence is one of two projects that aims to complement
the reform of the Convention.
This project is co-financed by the Rights,
Equality and Citizenship (REC) programme of the EU with a budget of around €350,000. The project aims to raise awareness among
victims of domestic violence, and potential victims including women with
disabilities, LBTI women and migrant women. These target groups were identified
as more susceptible to be victims of violence, in the survey Violence
against women: an EU-wide survey by the European Union Agency for
Fundamental Rights (FRA) which found that 15% of women in Malta have
experienced physical and/or sexual violence by a current or a previous partner
since the age of 15. Furthermore, the survey found that across Member States,
16% of non-heterosexual women say they have experienced physical and/or sexual
violence by a male non-partner since the age of 15, compared to 12% of
heterosexual women, whereas 11% non-heterosexual women have experienced this
type of violence by female perpetrators, compared with 4% of heterosexual
women. The survey also showed that 34% of women who have health problems or
have a form of disability have experienced physical or sexual violence by a
partner compared to 19% of those who do not have a health problem or a form of
disability. Local research carried out by the Commission on Gender-based
Violence and Domestic Violence (2014) also show an increasing number of migrant
women seeking support services at emergency and second-stage shelters when
compared to previous years where residents were mainly of Maltese origin.
Taking into consideration these statistics, the project aims to address
the needs for further data collection, research, analysis and dissemination of
results on the perception of domestic violence among the general population; to
further empowerment of victims and raise awareness among vulnerable groups; and
identify and change negative attitudes and behaviours towards VAW and thus help
them break the cycle of violence.
The project addresses these needs by tackling the below objectives:
- Identifying behaviours and attitudes of victims
experiencing violence against women (VAW) which impede them from breaking free
from the cycle of violence;
- Raising awareness among vulnerable groups of women
with a focus on women with disabilities; migrant women; and lesbian, bisexual,
trans and intersex (LBTI) women, and for them to be informed about support
services and protection measures;
- Raising awareness among children and youths, and
actively aging boys and men in the fight against VAW;
- Raising awareness and encourage victims, potential
victims and witnesses to report VAW and seek help;
- Developing and implementing a set of mentoring
workshops for victims experiencing VAW to instigate the behavioural changes
required to break the cycle of VAW; and
- Developing and implementing an educational programme
for children and young adults on VAW prevention and spreading a clear message
of zero tolerance to VAW.
In order to achieve these objectives, the project includes an
awareness-raising campaign for the general public, information sessions, an
educational programme for children and youth, a mentoring programme for women
which fall under any one of the target groups mentioned above, as well as
research on violence trends.
This project is being implemented in collaboration with the following
partners:
- The University of Malta (UoM)
- The Malta Girl Guides (MGG)
- The Commission for the Rights of Persons with
Disability (CRPD)
- The Migrant Women Association Malta (MWAM)
- The Malta LGBTIQ Rights Movement (MGRM)
To learn more about the project’s deliverables and activities click here
To learn more about the project’s awareness raising campaigns click here
You may access the final project report 
here
You may access the project's evaluation report here
You may access the full Violence against women: an EU-wide survey here.
