Minister for Equality and Civil Liberties tells parliament this morning that women should not provoke men

Helena Dalli, the Minister for Civil Liberties and Equality, told parliament this morning what the government is doing to combat violence against women.

She spoke about promotional campaigns and the like (how useful) and did not speak in condemnation of what Joe Debono Grech said to Marlene Farrugia.

Instead, without mentioning the incident directly, she gave a long-winded and not quite oblique explanation of how she sees things: that if women “provoke men” with their sharp tongue, they get what’s coming to them.

Can you believe it? Yes, I bet you can. It couldn’t be plainer that she was talking about Marlene Farrugia, but the message she sent was much wider: “Speak nicely, ladies, or you’ll only have yourself to blame if he hits you.”

Two decades ago, a man called Grazio Gerada, who lived in Marsascala, was sentenced to just seven years in prison for the hideously gruesome murder of his wife, Diane, because she “provoked him”. His response to this provocation was to stab her with ferocious savagery while she was lying in bed next to their sleeping infant. She crawled, covered in blood from her stab-wounds, to the bedroom balcony in a desperate attempt to call the neighbours for help.

He carried on stabbing her, and as she lay twitching and dying on the floor, streaming blood from her 50 wounds, he walked to the bathroom, came back with a bottle of ammonia-based lavatory cleaner, and poured it over her face and her open wounds. Meanwhile, their small children were desperately trying to call the emergency number over and over again and not getting through – because they were ringing the number they knew from American television programmes, which was not Malta’s emergency service number.

Seven years. Because he was provoked. And today the Minister for Civil Liberties and Equality stands up in parliament and says that women should watch their tongue, because then they have only themselves to blame if they get hit. She didn’t say it in those specific words, but that is exactly what she meant. And we heard it.

“Don’t speak sharply to men, ladies, or you’ll only have yourself to blame if they thump you.”