When writing on the “role of the child advocate” (March 23) Ann Marie Mangion, a family and child lawyer, stated that “a child’s advocate is appointed to represent the interests of any minor children”. She added “the court can appoint a children’s advocate where in its opinion this is required in the interests of any minor children...” Finally she opined that “the court holds that the children’s rights should be paramount and that is how it should be”. She was writring on cases of marital separation in court.
A quantitative nationwide research on domestic violence, commissioned by the Malta Commission on Domestic Violence, revealed this year that three per cent of pregnant women were beaten, punched or kicked in the abdomen and that 30 per cent of abuse cases started in pregnancy. It was also reported that Mater Dei Hospital’s gynaecology department regularly referred cases of domestic violence.
According to Article 2 IX of the Domestic Violence Act of 2006 unborn children in Malta have legal rights for protection from “any” type of domestic violence, as any battered woman.
In 2009 and 2010 it emerged that a total of 129 unborn babies from Malta were aborted... killed... in the UK. Other unborn children, as indicated by The Times leader (April 10), may be ending up with their mothers at the door of some abortion clinic abroad, other than the UK, and perhaps even here in Malta.
To the knowledge of the Malta Unborn Child Movement there are no published official statistics showing the extent of the harm done to unborn children by the consumption of drugs, alcohol and tobacco by the parents of the child. Lately Maltese medical experts related extensively on the local media on the harm these substances do to the unborn child.
MUCM is informed that the Health and Safety Authority does not have sufficient human resources to promote the lives and good health of the unborn child on the places of work. Nor to protect the parents and the unborn from the hazardous effects of toxins and chemicals at the same places in spite of the fact that it has been entrusted with the responsibility to do so by the Health and Safety Law of 1996.
It seems we have so far failed “to protect the interests”, life and health of an unborn child in our courts when a mother went there in 2009 for redress alleging that her newborn died a few days after birth because she was exposed to chemical substances on her place of work. This is where Dr Mangion’s insistence that “the term ‘represent’ does not mean the same thing as when the mother and the father engage the services of a lawyer”, becomes more poignant.
These concerns were brought to the attention of the Minister for Justice and the Family and the Commissioner for Children when an MUCM delegation met them last month.
Prodded by EU institutions the government this month deployed 100 law enforcement officials to protect the lives of thousands of birds but deployed no unborn child advocate, so far, to defend the lives and health of our unborn children.
Is it not the time that the role of the child advocate is extended also “to represent the interests” of unborn children for protection to their lives and from harm, of any description, to their bodies? Maybe next time Dr Mangion will suggest how the right for a child advocate is extended also to unborn children in Malta and Gozo.
The Attorney General should recommend the introduction of an unborn child advocate to the government.