Children who live in out-of-home care think their feelings should be given more weight when the government takes a decision to remove them from their families.

This emerged during recent interviews carried out with 33 children living in care, ahead of the drafting of the long-awaited Children’s Act that will come into force at the end of next year.

This law will collect all relevant children’s provisions that are now fragmented across different laws.

“We already know that removing a child from their family is traumatic.

“But these children told us, for example, that the situation was more stressful when they were removed while at school,” explained children’s law expert Ruth Farrugia, who is chairing the National Commission for the Development of Strategy and Policy for Children.

As things stand today, she said, the care orders board did not always listen to what children had to say.

Children in care craved to spend time with their siblings

The consultation showed that they wanted to be heard and wanted to share their feelings in a one-to-one environment in which they felt comfortable.

The care order procedure is one of the first issues being addressed during the consultation process dealing with children in care. Once that is concluded, the commission will be looking at more long-term issues, such as adoption.

Dr Farrugia said the consultation also revealed that children in care craved to spend time with their siblings. While some understood the need for a care order, they still wanted to see their parents.

Social Solidarity Minister Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca explained she felt the need to set up the commission to ensure that children’s voices were heard and that they were listened to in their own right and not merely within the family context.

She said the commission had various roles, which was why it was divided into five subcommittees.

One of these committees would be responsible for drawing up the Child Poverty Strategy, given that recent figures showed 31 per cent of children in Malta were at the risk of poverty or social exclusion, she said.

Another subcommittee would work on developing a consultation system that was effective with children while another would address the needs of unaccompanied minors, that is, young asylum seekers.

There were some 200 such minors in the custody of the State, Ms Coleiro Preca said.

A third subcommittee would work on drawing up the Children’s Policy. A draft had been launched for consultation in 2010 under the previous administration but this government felt children had not been appropriately consulted, the minister said.

She added that the commission was building on the previous draft.

Finally, she added, a subcommittee would be dedicated to working on the Children’s Act, that had been in the pipeline since the 2000 draft was “forgotten” by the previous government.

Among its various responsibilities the commission would also be overseeing a three-year study aimed at understanding specific trends impacting children, such as cyber bullying.