Divorce would help minimise and eliminate the social stigma associated with children whose parents are cohabiting, the Divorce Movement said today.

Addressing a news conference at the Mgarr playground, movement head Deborah Schembri said that a third of children born in Malta were born out of wedlock.

Divorce would prevent this from happening. It would help stabilise the relationship of these children's parents' through marriage.

She explained that a salient point in the proposed divorce bill was to increase the age at which parents would be obliged to provide maintenance for their children from 18 to 23 for those children who were still studying.

Dr Schembri, who was accompanied by MPs Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando (PN) and Evarist Bartolo (PL), said that although the reference to illegitimacy had been removed, there still existed some distinction between children born within and outside of marriage. Such was the case with inheritance.

She said that one could hardly call a marriage that between a couple that would have been separated for four years or more. It would be a marriage just on paper. Divorce would give such couples the chance to establish a stable family within a marriage.

Dr Schembri said that no fault divorce, which was the type being proposed, was beneficial for children as it made no sense to reopen conflicts that tried to pin fault on either of the parties following the trauma of the separation proceedings.