GRTU president Paul Abela said today that the GRTU would not take a position on divorce, but he was personally against its introduction.

He said that the family and values were important in society . Family unity was especially important for the GRTU since many of its members were family businesses and they suffered whenever families broke down.

His appeal, therefore was for society to continue the divorce debate and for people to inform themselves before the referendum on May 28 and vote according to their conscience.

Mr Abela made his comments when he met a delegation from the anti-divorce movement.

The president of the movement,  Andre' Camilleri, said the problems of separated persons - 13,500 according to the 2005 census - could not be ignored and one needed to investigate what was causing marriage breakdowns, including the possible economic reasons.

Society, he said, should address those problems, and the government should also allocate more resources for mechanisms to help couples whose marriage ran into trouble. That, he insisted, was far better than offering divorce, which compounded rather than resolved problems.