Teachers, who experience firsthand the suffering children go through when their families break up, were not speaking up about this reality during the divorce debate, Nationalist MP Edwin Vassallo complained yesterday.
“I wish I heard teachers speak up more... We should also be listening more to the voices of separated couples,” said Mr Vassallo, who chairs Parliament’s Social Affairs’ Committee.
His argument was backed up by former Children’s Commissioner Sonia Camilleri as well as Labour MP Marie Louise Coleiro-Preca, who spoke during a business breakfast organised by the anti-divorce movement as part of their referendum campaign.
When asked to comment, Malta Union of Teachers’ president John Bencini said the debate should not enter schools.
The job of teachers was to teach the subject they were qualified in.
The only room to discuss divorce at school should be during personal and social development (PSD) lessons where children could voice their concerns, he said.
Ms Camilleri, who is a teacher, said that professionals who worked closely with children, including teachers and psychologists, were not present enough in the debate.
She said the bulk of the 400 cases she dealt with when she was commissioner were the result of broken families. Ms Camilleri recalled the case of children who were upset because their father wanted them to call his new partner “mum” and call their mother by her first name.
Ms Coleiro-Preca insisted that she disagreed with divorce because she was standing up for the most vulnerable – children.
Speaking during the business breakfast, lawyer Bernard Grech said parliamentarians were caught in a dangerous web as they had to choose between the rights of children and what suited the parents. “If children had a vote they would vote against divorce,” he said.
Anti-divorce movement member Anna Vella said divorce was not a mere certificate of marital breakdown, as argued by pro-divorce chairman Deborah Schembri.
“It’s not a private thing... Divorce is contagious.
A divorce mentality will follow the introduction of divorce as human behaviour makes it easier to flee than fight,” she said.
Fr Angelo Seychell recounted how two Sundays ago, a fellow priest asked him to celebrate a Mass he (Fr Seychell) was meant to say and he agreed.
He later learnt that during the 11 a.m. Mass the priest, whom he did not name, spoke about divorce and told the congregation in the Żejtun parish church not to be “pullicinelli” (clowns) – a play on the surname of pro-divorce campaigner and MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.
Fr Seychell criticised the “unethical” approach of his colleague but added that some people thought it was he who said those words and walked out of the church insulted.
André Camilleri, from the No campaign, urged people to vote and said the movement would be organising transport for those who had problems getting to the voting areas.
Anyone who needed transport could call 27/99/79280511.
The last six digits of the number are the date of the referendum, he noted.