Malta does not allow under 18s to join the Armed Forces, children are well looked after and schooling became compulsory a long time ago.
By European standards our children live in decent houses, do not die from hunger and benefit from a welfare state that has been in place for over 40 years. But children in Malta also suffer in silence, are bullied not only by their peers, but also by their parents.
The latter group of children come from broken families. By broken families I do not mean only families where the husband and wife are no longer living under the same roof, but also those families where children experience violence day in, day out. Very often parents seeking personal separation tend to forget the welfare of their children and enter into piques even on the smallest of pretexts. Parents tend to forget that their children have feelings, lack the experience to evaluate certain situations, and their lack of advanced life skills make them more vulnerable to cope with emotional stress fashioned by the feuds tormenting the rest of the family.
Sometimes children who come from broken homes narrate stories which seem to be unbelievable but they are Gospel truth. They witness extreme physical violence committed by one of the spouses (usually men) on the other. In their frenzy, some parents also beat their children, who are too afraid to report to the police (if they are old enough) or to inform their school teacher. Undoubtedly this trauma will be carried by children for the rest of their lives.
Our two judges sitting in the family court often listen in private the stories narrated by unfortunate children who end up like a ping-pong ball oscillating from one side of the table to the other. Women tend to seek revenge on their husbands by making it difficult on them to have access to their children. On the other hand a number of unscrupulous fathers abandon their children, refuse to pay maintenance and it is only after the wife takes criminal action against them that they fall in line.
All these instances create unnecessary tension in children, more often than not disrupting their studies, if not leading them to drug abuse when they grow older.
Maltese children’s rights are also tramped upon when parents do not take good care of their needs. According to law the Minister responsible for family affairs steps in and removes children from such environments. I have seen some of these cases but I am not convinced that we have the necessary adequate facilities to substitute deficient parents.
We also have the most obese children in Europe. Sport does not form an integral part of school curriculum and we are more prone to send our children to private lessons than to play or practice some sport. Only the very few do it. It is good news to hear that in a few weeks’ time, the Education Department will not allow junk foods in schools. I want to hear heads of schools loudly insisting on their fellow teachers not to transform their pupils and students into beasts of burden. Teachers insist that their students to have a file on every subject making the load heavier than necessary. Certain schools provide lockers or encourage students to use carriers, but they are so few in number that one can hardly spot them. The right to a healthy living is the most basic right but our children are not always guaranteed such right.
Deficiencies often spring out of the educational system. It is no longer acceptable that students leave school without having attained the basic skills of reading and writing. It is inexplicable how the State is pumping huge millions of liri each year in the educational sector when results are getting poorer. It is not enough to redecorate schools or buy a few computers. It is high time that educational authorities carry out an independent audit (preferably by foreign experts) to individualise the shortcomings of our educational system and make amends before more students are condemned to lead an unskilled and illiterate life.
It is very unfortunate that Mrs Sonia Camilleri did not accept a renewal for the post of Commissioner for Children; she was doing a splendid job and had every right to refute a new mandate when the Government did not vote enough funds for the proper workings of her department. This year’s budget has also committed a pittance for the proper functioning of the office of the Commissioner for Children and with a limited budget we cannot expect wonders.
We do not need much more codification but we need the political will to tackle the innumerable problems that hundreds of children face every day, without much hope of seeing the bright light. Departments and agencies mushroom every now and then but we need action and not merely a conglomerate of advisors. Advice is important but the government should provide the logistics so that advisors can work and solve problems rather than advise on them.
The first baby born at Mater Dei illustrates the whole situation. All the dignitaries were present for a photo-shoot out to be splashed for propaganda purposes, but I did not manage to discover who the baby is and who are his/her parents.