Opinion • February 22 2004

Madeleine did not die of an overdose

Anna Mallia points to the real reasons of a non entity’s death and questions our respect for children
Madeleine Ancilleri did not die of an overdose: Madeleine’s death was another example of how the systems of care that we are providing to children who come from disrupted families or who give an early start to a delinquent life is failing. Of course, Madeleine is considered a non-entity by the state and no minister, unlike the case of Meinrad Calleja, went to the press saying that the juvenile care and justice system in our country has collapsed or that the government has decided to re-examine the whole system. The Minister for Justice is puzzled by the choice of jurors and not by the lack of an adequate juvenile justice system or an adequate care system to children who are in need of care.

No rehabilitation
Think of the various incidents of violence on teachers and headmasters by students. The union and the Ministry of Education pay lip service by condemning such incidents and rightly so but they stay idle and do not anything to try to treat the cause of the problem. They know that we do not have a juvenile justice system. They know that the teachers can actually pin point children from the ages of six and seven who will be the criminals of tomorrow. They know and are frustrated because they do not have anywhere they can refer these children to so they can be rehabilitated before they graduate in criminality.

No adequate truancy law
They know that truancy in Malta is on the increase and the education officials seem to enjoy watching their social workers be the laughing stock in the local tribunals where truancy offences are now being heard. The enlightened in the Ministry of Education know that most of the medical certificates provided by the parents of the pupils and students are false and they stay idle. The industrial dispute with Government doctors and the Education Department has been on for the past three years and hence no doctor is sent to the pupil’s home to verify if he is truly sick. The heads of school say that they have no authority to engage a private doctor themselves.
May I invite you to attend one of the sittings before the local tribunal. Our enlightened authorities at the Ministry of Education, have the education of our children so much at heart that they have accepted to equate truancy with a parking ticket offence or with loitering. They have found no objection for such delicate and important cases which are ruining our children’s future to be treated a par with such trivial offences. Not only that, but the social workers in the Education Department are spending most of the week, not on social cases, but touring the various towns and villages in Malta attending these sessions where we all the know the penalty is still trivial: Lm1 for every school day that the pupil failed to attend.
Another problem that they are facing is that they have a number of children who they cannot trace. In the past, they could use the embarkation cards to see if these children have left the country. Nowadays this system is no longer in force and to add insult to injury, whenever they knock on any government or other department’s door for information, they are being faced with the new buzzwords – the data protection act – so that, believe it or not, the Education Department has a considerable number of five year olds who are by law supposed to be in a school but to date cannot be traced. Let us not take it for granted that they have all emigrated with their parents: how can these people go to sleep at night knowing that there may children who are being exploited or molested by the parents?

No Juvenile Justice System
In Malta we boast that we love our children so much that we have appointed a Commissioner for children, we have appointed advocates for children and we have appointed mediators in the family court. Of course they do not tell us that in Malta we do not have a juvenile justice system that can actually rehabilitate children with delinquent tendencies. Our Juvenile Court is still not treated with the respect that it deserves. There is no criminal procedure for children and young offenders. Social reports are not compulsory. Juveniles are arraigned in the adult courts. Lawyers falsely believe that an acquittal to juvenile clients is an acquittal from the criminal justice system when in actual fact all that they will be doing is giving a passport to that poor child to go and do it again. The punishment is neither proving to be a deterrent nor is it providing rehabilitation.

And Madeleine?
Madeleine was not a juvenile offender. Her mistake was that she was born in the wrong family and was taken from her family by a care order. She lived her life in an institution and from the age of fourteen she was placed at a home for “tfajliet imqarrbin” in Santa Venera where she discovered lesbianism and drugs. Needless to tell you, she had no programme or skills to follow. I have my doubts as to how skilled are the workers there. She was branded as ‘imqarrba’ and knew that she had to live with that. She was not even allowed to love a cat because the administrator would not allow it. She felt alone and abandoned and found solace in drugs.
But Madeleine was and will remain a non-entity in Malta and I do not know how many more ‘Madeleines the Minister wants to see ruined before he goes to the press and admits that we are not giving our children the best we can and that we need to re-examine the entire system.

Forgive me Madeleine.