Labour's document on gender equality

So, a representative of the party which boasts of consultation has, in one fell swoop, brushed aside all that the proposals and comments presented by NGOs interested in gender issues, when she pooh-poohed Labour's document on gender equality.

Minister Dolores Cristina dismissed the document as "been there, done that". This was not the reaction of the Federation of Women's Organisations, of the National Council of Women, of the UHM, of the GWU, of Ward u Zaghar... On the contrary they praised the document and augured that the next Labour government will implement the programme set before them for their critique.

But it seems that the minister hasn't had the time to read the document before pronouncing herself against it. Had she read it, she would not have said that the document calls "for legislation to combat discrimination on the grounds of equality between men and women when the Act for the Promotion of Equality between Women and Men was brought into force by a Nationalist government in 2003".

First of all, the document speaks about the strengthening of this Bill and, secondly, it was a Labour government in 1998 which drafted this Bill and when there was a change in government kept pushing the government to bring it into force. The Nationalist government kept dragging its feet until it had to enact the Bill because the European Union said that we must have it in place before joining the Union. What happened then was that Parliament was presented with a watered down version of what Labour had drafted, leaving only the minimum requested by the European Union.