The Labour Party recently issued a statement highlighting the fact that the government had not signed up to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, regarding complaints and investigation procedures.

… under GozniPN ‘consultation’ is just a propaganda exercise, a marketing ploy to divert attention…- Justyne Caruana

Apart from the Optional Protocol, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in its entirety is not in effect in Malta because through years of foot-dragging, the government has failed to follow-through with the appropriate legal procedures to promulgate the Convention as part of the Laws of Malta. The net effect is that so far, the rights enshrined in the Convention cannot be invoked or enforced in the Maltese Courts of Justice, despite the Convention having been formally and technically accepted, signed and ratified by the government years back.

Thus, we are left with a usual half-measure by the present government whose lethargic approach on such an important issue as children’s rights is downright shameful. In concrete terms, among other rights, the full effect of the Convention would place the right of children to be represented and heard before the courts in matters which relate to them, above the rights of adults which arise due to certain legal anomalies.

The PL’s statement promptly elicited a knee-jerk Department of Information press release with a characteristic GonziPN approach of attacking the messenger. Rather than addressing the issues, it attempted to misguide and shift the argument. Instead of giving a timeframe for promulgating and bringing the Convention into full effect, the DOI press release starts by stating that “the Laws of Malta include a number of provisions which protect children’s rights”. As if, according to the government, the Convention of the Rights of the Child is then not needed!

This is followed by a blatantly banal argument in the form of an attack on me, made by the assertion that to bring up the foot-dragging by the government is tantamount to politicising the issue and even a breach of the Convention by bringing up a children-related issue.

Firstly, it is the opposition’s role to hold the government responsible for failures and delays as described above. And secondly I consider it my duty, and even a sacred obligation, to fight for children’s rights. It appears that the Justice and Family Ministry cannot handle any criticism. The proper approach would have been to tell the truth about the fact that the entire Convention has not yet been promulgated into Maltese law and then the ministry should have indicated a definitive timeframe of how it was to rectify the situation.

A subsequent DOI press release two days later stated that the Optional Protocol has now been signed; something which if it had been scheduled one would think would have been mentioned in the first press release. Instead the first DOI press release ends with the trite statement about more consultations, this time concerning a policy draft issued last December by former Social Policy Minister Dolores Cristina, and how the Minister for Justice, Public Consultation and the Family Chris Said has in recent weeks been meeting and will continue to meet various parties in order to “refine the document”.

Unfortunately, under GonziPN, “consultation” is just a propaganda exercise, a marketing ploy to divert attention, purposely mocking the truth to misdirect the public’s attention. Worse yet, some GonziPN Cabinet members, as part of their partisan propaganda efforts, do not hesitate to use schoolchildren in pictures and in video clips which are then used for personal political purposes – a clear violation of children’s rights and of the said Convention.

I have specifically pointed out Dr Said and Ms Cristina (who previously was responsible for the family and children’s rights) as having recently posed with children for the purpose of partisan propaganda. Minister Said had purposely sent a leaflet in all Gozitan homes extolling his personal efforts, part of which included photos with children taken during visits to public schools and other occasions. Minister Cristina, in similar fashion, appeared in the media, by tying a visit to a school with the presentation of her part (now reduced) of the fourth year of operation of GonziPN.

These are cases of manifest exploitation, since children’s faces are being used for political purposes which are not related to the children themselves or their rights, but have more to do with the ministers’ partisan political actions. It would be appropriate for relevant authorities, particularly the Commissioner for Children and the Police Commissioner to investigate, if the parents or guardians of the children shown were informed ahead of time and whether they gave their consent for the children to be included in such published material or broadcast in the media. Depending on the outcome, legal proceedings should be initiated if it results that violations took place.

I have long been calling for a comprehensive law which covers children’s rights and issues. To date the present government has not delivered and when called out on it, GonziPN’s ministers do not have real answers. But beyond the law itself, it is everyone’s duty to condemn those who slyly or overtly use individual or groups of children as means to their political propaganda ends.

Dr Caruana is the opposition spokesman for family, children and disabled persons.