Dom Hélder Câmara, who tirelessly worked with the poorest in Brazil and for this was known as the bishop of the slums, is often quoted for when he said: “When I give to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, they call me a Communist”.

The increase in misery... for society’s most vulnerable should seriously concern policymakers- Helena Dalli

And isn’t this the question we should all be asking and addressing: Why are people poor?

The recent study by Caritas, A Minimum Budget For A Decent Living, has confirmed scientifically what we know from our experience in the kitchens-cum-living rooms-cum-bedrooms of persons living in poverty.

The research has also thrown light on what we have been saying with regard to the phenomenon of the feminisation of poverty. Single motherhood is one of the correlates of poverty. The increase in the number of single women in poverty is significant, primarily as the proportion of poor families headed by single mothers keeps growing. This is not only a consequence of a low income but also the result of gender biases and stereotypes ingrained in society.

Surely, absent fathers who are ready to have children but not to carry the responsibility of caring and rearing do not help the situation. There are various reasons why single women with children become poor, top of which is because they have to live off welfare without the father’s financial support and their inability to find a job, which fits their child-rearing reality and which matches their skills, if they have any.

In order to properly address this situation we need further research to substantiate often well-known reasons into why women declare the father to be unknown. It may be because they already know that the father is not going to support his offspring. It may be in order not to give the father any rights over the child, especially if the baby is the result of a short-term relationship, if we may call it so.

Should it be the Department of Social Services that chases the fathers to take on their responsibilities or the mothers who have just given birth and are trying to organise and adjust their lives to the newly added responsibility of bringing up a child or even more than one child on her own? Should it be up to the court to decide the father’s right to custody considering his ability as a parent?

There are those then who say that we should consider withholding the welfare aid until the mother names the father. Others insist that this will compound the mother’s predicament.

Another question is, how are we addressing the lack of support structures for single mothers to get into paid work, with waiting lists for subsidised childcare, rigid conditions of work and precarious work? What we have does not even cater for the needs of a two-parent family let only those of a single parent (mainly mother) with children.

Definitely, we also need to work more on the culture of bringing up our girls with the mentality that there is no other way but to be self-sufficient, financially independent, to acquire enough skills to be able to provide for themselves and, eventually, for their children.

Boys, on the other hand, need to be made aware and responsible for their behaviour. We need to get it into their heads that when they father children they are as responsible as the mother who carries them in her womb and have an obligation and responsibility to care for those children in all ways and be present in their lives. The more support, the better the chances that the children will grow up to obtain the necessary skills to live a decent life and provide for themselves and their own offspring eventually.

We must do all that we can so that if we are not able to eradicate poverty, at least we will stop it from continuing to take on a feminine face surrounded by children who suffer the same fate.

Another poverty fighter, liberation theologian Frei Betto, was once asked by his torturer when the military captured him: How can a Christian collaborate with a Communist? He replied that for him people are not divided along the lines of believers and non-believers but between oppressors and oppressed, between those who want to hold on to an unjust society and those who want to struggle for justice.

Only if we are with the latter group will we be able to tackle the cancer of poverty. The results of the Caritas study are an indictment against this government’s economic and social policies and no amount of political spin can save the Prime Minister and his Cabinet from their own numbers. These numbers describe a different kind of Malta from the one projected by Castille.

This research covers only a part of the poverty landscape. The increase in misery – financial and otherwise – for society’s most vulnerable should seriously concern policymakers. Like Dom Câmara, tackling economic and social policy in this area, we should be guided by the question of why the poor are poor. And, at the end of each day, we should ask ourselves what have we done to fight and alleviate poverty.

helenadalli@gmail.com

Dr Dalli is shadow minister for the public sector, government investments and gender equality.