If you live in Malta, I am sure you have heard of the horrific femicide of Paulina Dembska. If you haven’t yet heard of it, Paulina, a 29-year-old polish woman, was sexually assualted and killed by a man, on 2nd January 2022 at the Independence Garden, in Sliema. This news shook the whole nation and even more so women.
It especially deeply affected a lot of women, both physically and emotionally because women’s deepest fears, that is, of being harassed or harmed by a man, turned into reality and they realised that it could have easily been them, their female relative or their female friend.
From a very young age, girls are raised to be very wary of men they don’t know and to take extra measures and precautions to safeguard them from being harassed or harmed by men. It’s a very sad reality that just because someone is a woman, she has to live her life in fear that someday she may be harmed by a man.
This fear can be very crippling because some women are so aware of their higher risk of being harmed that they hold back from living their life, normally. Some women are for example, scared to go out alone especially during night time or early morning. This ‘normal’ fear that most women have to live with was magnified when the femicide of Paulina Dembska hit the news as they realised that someday it could be them.
After this tragedy, a lot of women started coming forward and sharing their harassment and violence stories caused by men. Women started realising even further how often they face these horrific scenarios and how sad it is that a lot of times, the men causing the harassment or harm aren’t punished at all, or don’t get the sentence they deserve.
This femicide brought about the following questions in a lot of women’s minds:
Why do women have to live in fear of being harmed?
Why do women have to take extra precautions and measurements to minimise the risk of being harmed?
Why can’t women live a normal life and do all the activities they want to without any restrictions?
The answer is simple, because even though we live in 2022, we unfortunately still live in a patriarchal, misogynistic society where a lot of men still believe they are the better, more powerful gender and treat women as 2nd class citizens. A lot of times they have the need to physically prove this by making women feel uncomfortable or by hurting them.
Legislation needs to be changed not only to adequately punish men who cause harm to women but to also allow women to live in a safe society, free from fear and free to live a normal life as they rightly deserve.
Yes, women are aware that not all men are going to harm them (thank goodness), but it is enough men for women to have to assume that a man that they don’t know might harass or hurt them (until proven otherwise), for them to be able to take extra precautions to keep themselves safe.
I really hope that justice will be served for Paulina Dembska, she had a whole life ahead of her and she deserved to live and enjoy it but yet her life was cut too short just because a man decided to end it. I really hope that her femicide won’t be forgotten and piled up with others and I hope that laws will be changed to protect women. Finally, I also really hope that I get to live to see the day where women are safe and free.
R.I.P. Paulina Dembska, you deserved much better.
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Melissa was born on 18 November 1995, in Malta. She was born with Osteogenesis Imperfecta, which is a brittle bone disease. She makes use of a wheelchair to aid her in being fully independent. Having a disability never stopped Melissa in achieving her goals and dreams.
Melissa works as an audit trainee. At the age of 21 she graduated from the University of Malta with a bachelor’s degree in accountancy and banking and finance. She continued furthering her studies and she graduated with a diploma in professional accountancy in 2019. She is a firm believer in life-long learning and thus she is currently reading for an ACCA qualification.
In 2018 she set up a Facebook page and an Instagram account with the aim of providing more representation of people with disabilities on social media and to help break social stigmas that people with disabilities frequently face. She did this through sharing parts of her life and her journey whilst also incorporating her passions. In the same year she was also nominated for the JCI Malta’s Global Goal Awards, in the category for Contribution to Peace and Human Rights.
Melissa enjoys travelling and visiting new and different countries. It was always a big dream of hers to travel on her own and in early 2020 she managed to make her dream come true and went on her first solo trip to London.
Apart from travelling, Melissa is a huge makeup, fashion and beauty enthusiast. She is also a huge advocate against animal cruelty and in 2019 she transitioned to a vegetarian lifestyle which turned into a vegan lifestyle in 2020.
