The National Council of Women (NCW) said in a statement that it regards families as the backbone of a strong and healthy community and the establishment of loving supportive relationships from a young tender age as being the heart of happy, well functioning families. “Contrastingly, relationships founded on fear and violence cannot sustain or nurture either partner or the family they might hope to raise. Parents too need to become more aware of the importance of a family environmewnt that is conducive to the emotional development of children and youth.” the Council said.

For this reason, NCW said it “believes that there is a growing need to create more awareness of this problem of domestic violence amongst adolescents and youths, identifying early signs of domestic violence, placing particular emphasis on common patterns of controlling behaviour and abuse, such as signs of possessiveness, jealousy, put downs and humiliation, menace and threats.”

“These types of behaviour are all damaging to the youth’s emotional development and are the cause of a lot of suffering both on the victim and the perpetrator. Some youths come to accept violence as the norm, thinking they deserve no better. Violence can become a learnt behaviour, destroying the youths’ capacity to form healthy relationships.”

The Council continued by “stressing the importance of educating youths by addressing these initial signs of domestic violence and offering opportunities to develop skills through preventive measures which are crucial for young people to take control of themselves and their situation and also to stimulate them to seek help from competent professionals as early as possible.”

The Council said that there is also the need to provide more adequate and effective education on the early signs of domestic violence in relationships of teenagers and young couples, in schools at primary, secondary and tertiary level. In this way, more emphasis would be placed on prevention and early intervention of the early signs of domestic violence, both if these predispose the youth to become a victim or an abuser.

For this reason, the National Council of Women said that it “is presently embarking on a prevention campaign aimed at generating more awareness on the early signs of Domestic Violence amongst youths and possible measures which can be taken to address these problems. One aspect of the campaign will be to introduce youths to key professionals who can help them become be self-confident. In this way youths are not only being educated on the matter, but are also being empowered to take action against Domestic Violence.”

“The project will be coordinated with Agenzija Zghazagh and will be running towards the beginning of the upcoming year. More information on this project will be published in the upcoming weeks. This project will reach out to adolescents and youths from secondary schools to tertiary level through a series of activities held throughout the year which will target youths as the main protagonists against domestic violence towards a better future.

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