The new Commissioner For Children plans find out what is holding back the enactment of the Children's Act that has been in the pipeline for over a decade.

Helen D'Amato, Malta's third Children's Commissioner, said she planned to "explore" what caused the delay in solidifying the law aimed at safeguarding children's rights.

Her predecessor, Carmen Zammit, had stressed on the need to have a Children's Act that would collect all relevant children's provisions now fragmented across different laws.

She pointed out that professionals and service users were finding it difficult to access relevant legislation. The piecemeal introduction of child legislation was leading to variations in interpretation and application of the law, which was not in the best interest of the child.

Before her, Malta's first Children's Commissioner, Sonia Camilleri, had been highly critical of the absence of a Children's Act despite Malta's promise to the UN in 2000 that it was in the process of drawing one up. A special government committee had produced a draft in 1996 but nothing else was heard of it.

Ms D'Amato yesterday visited the St Paul's Bay primary school to mark International Children's Day. This was her first official school visit since her appointment two weeks ago.

The school is special in that it hosts students from about 30 nationalities who yesterday gathered in the assembly hall to greet the commissioner.

Kindergarten students dressed as different fruits, flowers and insects and birds sang a song about a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Little actors crawled in a line across the stage as they played the part of the long caterpillar eating through cardboard fruit held up by their friends.

A colourful bird and a bee then covered the caterpillar train with a large white sheet and a little girl, dressed as a pink butterfly with spectacles, emerged instead and danced around the stage.

"We have a lot to learn from these children. It's in their nature to accept one another irrespective of nationality and skin colour. In the adult world, where personal interests come into play, people are not so open to different cultures," Ms D'Amato said.

It was the duty of adults to ensure children were allowed to live their childhood without being turned into "mini-adults", she said.