The logo of Victim Support Malta shows an image of Les Gavroches (1903) — The Street Urchins — by the Maltese artist, Antonio Sciortino (1879-1947). Sciortino’s wonderful work of art is the trade mark of Malta's victim support services.

The statue has been chosen to symbolise Victim Support Malta’s work, and all other work related to it, for the reason that Sciortino’s urchins evoke the idea of unfortunate and underprivileged persons in need of support and assistance. The statue’s amazing sense of movement, moreover, may be evocative of the way forward that Victim Support Malta proposes for the rights of victims of crime in Malta.

Sciortino’s Les Gavroches forms part of the sculptor’s first of the three stages in his complex and eclectic development. It is a phase characterised by dynamism, youthful zest, and lively animation. The masterpiece is the exemplar of this phase. Sciortino produced it when he was only 24.

It is evident that he was inspired by Victor Hugo’s vivid description of the three street urchins who roamed the streets of Paris during the tumultuous days of the 1848 revolution. In Chapter 250 (Vol. IV, Bk. vi, Chap. II), Les Miserables has the following extract:

While Gavroche was scrutinizing the shop-window and the cakes of windsor soap, two children of unequal stature, very neatly dressed, and still smaller than himself, one apparently about seven years of age, the other five, timidly turned the handle and entered the shop, with a request for something or other, alms possibly, in a plaintive murmur which resembled a groan rather than a prayer. They both spoke at once, and their words were unintelligible because sobs broke the voice of the younger, and the teeth of the elder were chattering with cold. The barber wheeled round with a furious look, and without abandoning his razor, thrust back the elder with his left hand and the younger with his knee, and slammed his door, saying: "The idea of coming in and freezing everybody for nothing!"

The two children resumed their march in tears. In the meantime, a cloud had risen; it had begun to rain.

Little Gavroche ran after them and accosted them: —

"What's the matter with you, brats?"

"We don't know where we are to sleep," replied the elder.

"Is that all?" said Gavroche. "A great matter, truly. The idea of bawling about that. They must be greenies!"

And adopting, in addition to his superiority, which was rather bantering, an accent of tender authority and gentle patronage:—

"Come along with me, young 'uns!"

" Yes, sir," said the elder.

And the two children followed him as they would have followed an archbishop. They had stopped crying.

Gavroche led them up the Rue Saint-Antoine in the direction of the Bastille.

As Gavroche walked along, he cast an indignant backward glance at the barber's shop.

"That fellow has no heart, the whiting," he muttered. "He's an Englishman."

Sciortino brought the statue over to Malta in 1907. It was eventually acquired by the Malta Society of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce, which later donated it to government as a monument of national importance. A smaller replica in Buckingham Palace had been presented as a gift to Princess Elizabeth — later Queen Elizabeth II — during her visit to Malta in January 1951 by government on behalf of the people of Malta.

According of Dominic Cutajar (1998: ‘Antonio Sciortino: One of Malta's best loved sculptors’, Voice of the Mediterranean, 2/22):

Les Gavroches clearly owes much to Auguste Rodin's break with traditional sculpture, particularly in its coupling of an effervescent animation with a rough uneven surface, a formula that Sciortino's Les Gavroches repeats with astounding freedom, without a trace of inhibition or submissiveness to the great Rodin's reputation.

For almost a century Sciortino’s masterpiece had been at the Upper Barrakka Gardens in Valletta. Due to its exposure to the elements it deteriorated considerably. This became particularly evident when Dr Sante Guido was commissioned to work on the conservation of the statue in 1999. The need was immediately felt to produce a bronze replica of it to be placed on display at the Upper Barrakka Gardens while sheltering the original at the National Museum of Fine Arts to ensure its proper conservation. A replica was thus executed by Mr. Joseph Chetcuti of Fonderija Artistika with the collaboration of Dr Guido, the expenses of the process being entirely covered by the Malta Stock Exchange.

Antonio Sciortino (1879-1947)

The finished replica was presented to Heritage Malta — the National Agency for Museums and Cultural Heritage — by the Malta Stock Exchange on February 7, 2004. It was later placed at the Upper Barrakka Gardens instead of the original, and enjoyed by the public when the gardens were re-opened after restoration works in April 2004.

The Latin motto adorning the image — SINE NOTIONE NULLUM IUS — means: WITHOUT INFORMATION NO JUSTICE.