Dr Clarissa Sammut Scerri, Head, Department of Family Studies within the Faculty for Social Wellbeing, has been invited as an expert speaker at the Hearing on 'Children victims or witnesses of gender-based violence within families', organised by the Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality, on 21 November, 2018, Brussels, Belgium. 

Dr Sammut Scerri highlighted the urgent need for a European-wide prevalence study to know how many children are living in domestic violence contexts. The vast majority of studies have shown how witnessing domestic violence is associated with a wide range of psychological, emotional, behavioural, social and academic problems ( Fantuzzo & Lindquist, 1989; Wolak & Finkelhor, 1998; Margolin & Gordis, 2000; Levendosky & Graham-Bermann, 2001; McCloskey & Lichter, 2003), both in the short term and in the longer term ( Sammut-Scerri, Vetere, Abela & Cooper). Children are usually not mere observers in their family. But they are often centrally involved both directly when they witness the aggression of their significant others and indirectly when they overhear the violence or experience the consequences of the violence. 

Dr Sammut Scerri also stressed the need for investment in prevention across the life span using evidence-based strategies (WHO 2014); the need for early intervention – screening at primary health settings for early identification; Investing in working with men who are abusive both as perpetrators and fathers and investing in consolidating present services especially those services for mothers and children that have shown to generate the most successful psychosocial recovery in both parties (Anderson & van Ee, 2018).