Migrants born at sea will no longer remain stateless and will be given the right to be registered in Malta, the Ombudsman said.
A probe by the Ombudsman’s Office into why such children remain without a legal identity has led to an agreement with the Home Affairs Ministry for the Civil Code to be amended. This would allow children born on board vessels to be registered in Malta, Joseph Said Pullicino told Times of Malta.
The Home Affairs Ministry has yet to confirm or deny the information.
However, ministerial correspondence sent to the Ombudsman’s office, and seen by Times of Malta, confirms the process to enact the required legislative amendments.
The Office of the Permanent Secretary in the ministry wrote to the Ombudsman: “The idea is that the Civil Code will be amended in the coming weeks to allow the director to accept these kinds of registrations, after the necessary verifications are made. The amendments have already been drafted and a Cabinet memo has been sent for consideration by the same Cabinet.”
Dr Said Pullicino welcomed the move, saying: “There are a number of cases of children born at sea... and they’ve had problems for the last five years on how to register them because there was no way of doing it”.