[WATCH] Women vow to break the silence on domestic violence

Victim Support Malta, an NGO fighting domestic violence against women, took to the streets of Valletta today in an exuberant display of song and dance as part of the One Billion Rising For Justice international campaign.

The campaign, which is being organised every year on February 14^th, is part of a global call to women survivors of violence to gather safely in community outside places where they are entitled to justice - courthouses, police stations, government offices, school administration buildings, work places, sites of environmental injustice, military courts, embassies, places of worship, homes, or simply public gathering places where women deserve to feel safe but too often do not.

Dozens of campaigners and a number of NGOs, including Victim Support and Men Against Violence met outside Malta's law courts in Valletta this afternoon to break the silence on domestic violence with dance and music.

"In Malta, one in four women suffers violence - domestic, abuse, or rape - at some point in their life. The aim of One Billion Rising is to stop this violence," Lorraine Camilleri, of Victim Support Malta, said.

"Events like these show the power of solidarity for those women who are suffering. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, and this chain of silence in Malta must be broken," she said.

Roberta Lepre, also of Victim Support Malta, said that people who instigated abuse and domestic violence were likely to get away with it because their victims kept quiet.

Mark Pelicano, coordinator of NGO Men Against Violence, said that the aim of the campaign was to show society that acts of violence were unacceptable, whether they were carried out against females or males.

"We urge anyone suffering from any form of violence to come forward and seek help," he said, stressing that even perpetrators of violence needed help.

Also present for the lively event was Marceline Naudi Head of Gender Studies at the University of Malta.

Naudi said that it was crucial that the country made the right laws, and provided the proper services for abuse victims.

She urged government to ratify the Istanbul Convention - the first-ever binding convention on the subject of abuse and violence - so that cases of domestic violence will no longer be permissible.

"Everyone needs to do their bit," Naudi said. "The time is now."

Jodi Heckenlaible, lead singer of local group Mojo, provided the crowd with live music whilst students of the Dance Studies course at the University of Malta led the choreography.