Updated | 1028 cases of domestic violence reported in 2012

"It is important to know as much as possible what we are dealing with so as to know what needs to be done".

Meanwhile, Dr Carol Hagemann-White from the University of Osnabruck in Germany, said that there were many problems facing data-collection even in her own country.

She said, for instance, that the many times 'minor' offences such as threats were not reported as a form of domestic violence, even though this may just be the start of it.

"In some cases, because the type of domestic violence may not fall under the 'criminal' category, they may not even be reported," she said.

Marceline Naudi, the Head of the Gender Studies Department at the University of Malta also spoke at the seminar, in which she produced data on domestic violence in Malta.

Naudi said that the data was gathered through various parliamentary questions, court reports, and personal interviews carried out for more than two decades.

The total number of domestic violence cases for the year 2012 stands at 1,028, an increase of 543 2009's figures.

Of these, 69% of the victims were female aged 18 to 59, while 23% were males. The figure also includes 74 people who were under 18 but it excludes cases of rape.

"These figures paint a picture but they do not tell us the whole story," she said.  

The study also shows that between 1989 and 1991, Ghaqda Nisa Msawwta had 546 cases of women reporting abuse and that during the year 1990 - at a time when the Commission was not yet in existence - there were 103 cases of women who went to hospital as a result of injuries by family members. These included victims of rape, sexual abuse and violence against pregnant women and more than half of these injuries, she found, were inflicted by the husbands.

By the year 1993, the figure had more than doubled to 200 such cases within that year.

Over the last few years there have been between 200 to 350 cases every year reported to Appogg, a figure she described as "considerably large for Malta's size".

In 2012 alone, the Domestic Violence Unit reported 300 new cases of domestic violence, leaving a total of 668.

Naudi said that the most "shocking" finding of her study was to learn that there existed a waiting list at such places.

Last year, the DVU had 30 people listed down on a waiting list for the month of December only.

"We need to understand that victims of domestic violence are much more likely to call at one of these centres in the immediate aftermath of an incident in which they've been hurt or threatened," she said, stressing that it is already a big step for women to come forward.

"The last thing we should be doing is turning these women away, after all the effort they put into coming here," she said.

"If she had to receive a call a few months later, the chances are that she will play the incident down," she said.

Naudi said that the scenario as "unacceptable" but was insistent that this was no fault of the agencies involved who she described as "working way above their weight".

"The fact is that there are not enough resources," she said.