Maltese women are mobilising in reaction to a brutal murder as a result of domestic abuse that shocked the nation last week.

A March Against Femicide has been organised by the Women’s Rights Foundation for Saturday, 22nd September in Valletta, with hundreds of people already planning to attend.

“How many more women need to die at the hands of men? How many women need to have their lives taken away because system failed them? How many more….?” the organisers of the march asked in the event.

Alongside the march, many women have changed their personal profile pictures on social media to a black square, as part of a project against domestic abuse.

“Tomorrow, female blackout from 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. It’s a movement to show what the world might be like without women. Your profile photo should just be a black square so that men wonder where the women are. Pass it only to women … It’s for a project against domestic abuse. It is no joke,” says a message going around social media networks.

The march comes after a wave of repulsion towards the country’s indifference towards an epidemic of domestic abuse that many feel has been going on in this country forever

Many people have criticised the authorities reaction to domestic abuse cases. Lourdes Agius, the woman who was strangled by her 25-year-old partner last week, had repeatedly reported her partner to the police for domestic abuse.

In similar cases, women are not finding the support and help they need from the police and the state when they find themselves in a violent relationship, and can often find themselves being pressured by authorities to return to the relationship and try to work things out.

The situation is often times made even harder for women if children are involved, and faith in the authorities can easily be eroded when an abused woman sees her abuser get nothing but a slap on the wrist after she finally has enough courage to report him to the police.

Some people compiled a list of 14 victims of domestic abuse in Malta

And the Women’s Rights Foundation have also started a fund to help Lourdes’ Agius family with funeral costs

What do you think of Malta’s response to domestic abuse?

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Johnathan Cilia

Johnathan is an award-winning Maltese journalist interested in social justice, politics, minority issues, music and food. Follow him at @supreofficialmt on Instagram, and send him news, food and music stories at [email protected]