Opposition insists on parents' responsibility

The Opposition yesterday backed a Bill clamping down on alcohol consumption by children.

Labour spokesman Marie Louise Coleiro Preca said the Bill needed to be backed by a strong structure to ensure there was proper enforcement.

She also felt that the Bill should include provisions on parents' liability when their children broke the law, in the same way as parents were responsible for their children's actions under other laws.

Mrs Coleiro Preca said it was positive that Malta would now have a law which set the minimum age of alcohol consumption. This Bill would address an acute and worrying problem and it should be used as an effective tool for the benefit of Malta's young people.

Although this new law would govern alcohol consumption in public places, she, like the minister, insisted that parents could not abdicate their responsibilities.

Indeed, once this Bill involved minors, she felt there should be provisions holding parents liable for the actions of their children, in the same way as parents were fined when children did not go to school.

As a mother she could not understand how certain parents allowed young teenagers to stay out very late, arguing that they could not do anything about it. This brought to the fore the need for parenting skills as well as discipline. Although parents had to be their children's best friends, they should also remain their parents.

Mrs Coleiro Preca said this new law would need to be backed by proper enforcement, for which sufficient manpower was needed, not just by the police but also the various agencies and NGOs which campaign against alcohol consumption or abuse.

One needed to study why young people were increasingly turning to alcohol as part of their entertainment. Alcohol was being consumed by young people not just at places of entertainment but also at bars which were sprouting close to schools, and one had to see how students could be kept out of such places.

Mrs Coleiro Preca observed that in terms of the Bill, when a court found a child guilty of breaking the law he would be ordered to carry out community work but counselling was not compulsory. She felt that youngsters who resorted to drink should be disciplined but also counselled.

The Labour MP also referred to the findings of the ESPAD survey on alcohol consumption by young people, which placed Malta at the top of 37 surveyed countries. The trends in Maltese youths were more similar to those in Northern European countries than those in the south, even though the climate here was warmer.

It was good to have such comparative statistics, but Malta also needed to carry out its own research and establish its own yardsticks, Mrs Coleiro Preca said. While the problem had to be looked at from a regional aspect, there also had to be a local focus. What was leading young Maltese people to seek alcohol? Were they lacking facilities where they could spend their free time?

Malta had a lot of under-utilised sports facilities in schools and sports, and the arts were only being learned by those children whose parents could afford lessons.

The Labour MP underlined the health consequences of alcohol consumption on young people, particularly after binge drinking, including memory loss, high blood pressure and stomach ulcers. Drinking also led many young women to have unplanned pregnancies and could harm the unborn children.

Parents should be made more aware of these consequences. Indeed, they should realise that even giving their children a sip of alcohol when young could get them used to the taste.

Mrs Coleiro Preca observed that according to Health Promotion Unit figures issued on September 25, the most popular alcoholic drinks among youngsters were wine and beer. Such statistics should help the authorities in the way they addressed the problem. If price was a contributor to alcohol abuse, one should consider raising prices, as was done for cigarettes.

The Labour MP praised Sedqa officials for their campaigns against alcohol consumption, but said more campaigning was needed in tertiary level schools.

Mrs Coleiro Preca referred to the European Charter on Alcohol and said that apart from banning alcohol consumption among children, efforts to discourage alcohol abuse also needed to be redoubled and more emphasis needed to be placed on the consequences of this abuse, not just on the health of the abuser but poor health and safety, low productivity and a greater chance of accidents.

The social forces should unite on this issue to tackle it from its various angles, also including awareness, research, advertising, rehabilitation and training of people who came in touch with the problem, from judges to social workers and medical staff.