Last year was marked with a positive higher participation of women in the labour market, however, Malta had hit a ceiling in the political sphere, Equality Commissioner Renee Laiviera said this morning.

Speaking at the 12th annual conference of the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality, she said progress was often understood through statistics.

An important achievement, she noted, was the increase in female employment from 47 per cent in 2013, to 49.5 in 2014, and 52.8 per cent in the third quarter of last year.

However, only one fifth of the 2015 local election contestants and elected councillors were female, while Maltese Parliament had 13 per cent  female members.

Malta had similar figures for a number of years, and it was time to look at more initiatives to encourage female participation in politics, she added.

Ms Laiviera was speaking during NCPE’s launch of its work throughout 2015.

Data for last year shows there were 35 discrimination complaints registered by 12 people and three cases picked up by the NCPE itself.

This meant there was a total of 38 complaints in 2015, compared to 82 in 2014 and 53 in 2013.

This decrease was brought about by a drop in complaints that were not within NCPE’s remit, from 38 in 2014 to 20 last year. There was also a decrease in complaints about discrimination on the basis of race and ethnicity (19 in 2014 to 4 in 2015), while complaints on the basis of age dropped from nine to two.

Another drop – from four to one case - was registered in complaints on discrimination because of religious beliefs.

Most (nine) of the complaints were filed on the basis of gender or sexual harassment.

The Commissioner noted that under reporting was an international issue, and there were some who lodged complaints and then dropped them, while others reached out of court settlements.  She did not dismiss the possibility of looking into the decrease of complaints.

Speaking at the same conference, Civil Liberties Minister Helena Dalli insisted that ensuring equal opportunities in employment was crucial to reduce risk of poverty and exclusion.

Increasing female participation in the labour market was challenging , but an increase had been registered following a number of initiatives, she added. This included the introduction of free childcare to all parents with children aged between three months and three years, with a total of 5,500 kids attending centres by the end of August 2015.