Children’s voices should be heard in court and a system must be put in place to ensure they have access to a child advocate to ensure their rights are safeguarded, according to Children’s Commissioner Helen D’Amato.

Her words echo those of her two predecessors – Sonia Camilleri and Carmen Zammit – who both spoke about the need for children to be listened to by the courts.

Mrs D’Amato’s comments come after two weeks ago the appeals court confirmed a magistrate’s decision to sentence a 57-year-old mother to three months imprisonment for refusing to grant her ex-husband access to their son on 13 occasions.

But her son, who was 16 at the time, told The Sunday Times that his mother never stopped him from visiting his father – it was he who preferred to stay home and study. Calling on the courts to listen to children, he said his mother did not deserve to be given the harshest punishment allowed by law in such cases.

Moviment Graffitti will be holding a vigil tonight at 6.30pm outside the Corradino Correctional Facility to express solidarity with the mother and call on the court to reconsider its position and “redress this injustice with immediate effect”. An online petition has also been created ( https://www.causes.com/causes/796327 ).

Meanwhile, Ms D’Amato said that, according to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, children should be heard in any proceedings that concerned them.

“In order to ensure the fulfilment of this right… (I recognise) that a most serious shortcoming in our laws is that children are not automatically supported by a children’s advocate and neither can they themselves ask to be represented by one. It is the judge who decides whether a children’s advocate is assigned and it can also be requested by a mediator or parent,” she said.

Children should be given the right to decide whether to be represented by a child advocate and provided with the necessary practical and psychological support to take a decision, she added