Source document: https://docs-lawep.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/1698136986234.pdf (Malta)
Children’s Right to Play, Leisure and Creativity 3 States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of the child and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

(UN CRC, Article 31) Education and Consultation Structured leisure in Leisure activities are no different from educational structure and requiring much activities preparation.
From this stems the role of summer schools, which offer children a varied programme of leisure activities led by trained adults.

The Commissioner visited a number of such schools where she met with the children and conversed with them about the importance of leisure and recreation to their well-being and development.
Encouraging and valuing children’s artistic expression Visual art has the ability to unite children from all four corners of the world since it naturally transcends their linguistic and cultural differences.

This is the rationale of the Annual World Children’s Picture Contest organised by the IE-NO-HIKARI Association in Japan, for which the Office acts as an interface enabling children from Malta to participate in the contest.
One such child, Sarah Bulteel, aged 13, received an Honourable Mention for her picture entitled ‘My Village Festa’, as part of the 2013 edition of the Ms Helen D’Amato, Commissioner for Children, presenting Ms Sarah Bulteel with her Honourable Mention Certificate.

contest.
contest.

The Office, which presented Ms Bulteel with her certificate, also moved to publicly inform and encourage all children in Malta to express themselves pictorially on the related themes of Agriculture, Farming, Nature, Local People or even people within the Family Environment and to submit the products of their creativity for the following edition of the contest.

Five children responded to this call with as many pictures.
President’s Award for Creativity For the fourth year in a row, the Office contributed to the President’s Award for Creativity initiative which aims to help develop new talents and to promote arts-driven projects in order to engage children and young people within the community.

This initiative is divided into three different strands: Children, Young People and the Community.
The Task Manager within the Office was asked to sit on the Evaluation Board for projects submitted under the Community category which aims at promoting inclusion amongst children and young people.

Recommendations Combat Sports This type of sport, especially when practised by children, is associated with some very specific and serious concerns related to its safety.

This is because the aim of any combat sport is to strike, floor or even knock out one’s opponent.
Hence, while in other types of sport a blow to the body is an accidental occurrence, albeit happening with regular frequency in many sports, in a combat sport such blow is an intentional act which is often aimed at critical parts of the body, notably the head.

This implies that there is a significantly higher chance of a child sustaining serious even fatal injuries when practising a combat sport than when practising any other kind of sport.
Another exacerbating factor is that combat sports can easily attract individuals with violent streaks in their personality, be it as practitioners of or spectators to the sport.
23 Children’s Right to Play, Leisure and Creativity Notwithstanding the critical safety profile of combat sports, the position taken by the Office in 2013, when its interest in the subject started, has not been that combat sports should not be practised by minors in any form or fashion, but that the practice of this kind of sport by minors should be subject to a very strict ad hoc safety regulations.
Unfortunately, while the practice of combat sports in its myriad forms by minors is rife in Malta, this practice is entirely unregulated.

Upon taking stock of this situation, the Office formally requested the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (MCCAA) to set up a technical committee to draft a national standard on safety requirements for the practice of combat sports by minors.
This Technical Committee, composed inter alia of the Commissioner for Children and the Office’s Policy Officer, held its first couple of meetings in 2014.

Its first task was to define the exact scope of the standard.

The Committee decided to restrict this to combat sports practised in a boxing ring whether competitively or in a training context.
The standard will focus on combat sports such as boxing, kick- boxing and martial arts whilst combat sports falling outside the scope of the standards are foreseen to be the subject of other standards in the future.

Indoor Play Areas Early in the year, SM3600 “Indoor Play Facilities – Safety Requirements for Indoor Play Facilities and their Management” was published as a National Standard.
This marked the end of a long and complex gestation at the hands of the Technical Committee which drafted the standard and the beginning of a process that should see an improvement in the level of safety of indoor play areas for children.

Such a process is bound to be somewhat slow and weak if adherence to the standard is subject only to the goodwill of indoor play area operators, notwithstanding the proverbial carrot that can be put in through quality marks and tax benefits to elicit such goodwill.
For safety standards to be raised to the optimum level in the shortest time possible across all play facilities, the proverbial stick in the form of a legal enforcement of the standard is required.

approach to the implementation of the standard.

In 2014, the Office sought to capitalise on this agreement by liaising with some key stakeholders, including the Department of Trade, MCCAA and the Minister responsible for MCCAA, Hon.

Helena Dalli, to identify the best mechanism to enable the mandatory approach.
The main difficulty encountered was that the issue of the safety of play areas did not fall squarely in the remit of any single authority in Malta.

Hence, the standard could be enforced only through a structured interplay amongst multiple regulatory entities.

Children affiliated with Sports Clubs typically require much Children time and experimentation to find the leisure activity they like best.
This means that they should not be constrained into committing to a particular leisure activity, such as by registering with a sports club, too early in their childhood, since this can make it difficult for them to release themselves from that activity to experience a different form of leisure.

The Annual Report for 2013 (pg.


26) documents the positive outcome of the Office’s effort to bring about an upward revision of the minimum age for the registration of players with football club nurseries, which now stands at 12 years of age.

In 2014, the Office cast its attention on a similar issue subsisting in respect of athletics clubs and the ability of underage members to disengage from the clubs they are registered with.
To this end, the Office held meetings with operators in the field to explore the issue in more depth.

Participation in Children’s Rights- Related Networks and Fora Safe accommodation for child tourists When children spend time away from home, typically for leisure, it is important that their accommodation has all the safety features which the travelling children’s parents or guardians presumably take great pains to install in their homes to protect their children from injury.
The Office Annual Report for 2013 reported wide agreement as to the necessity of a mandatory This was the position taken by the Office in respect of a Green Paper on Safety of Tourism Accommodation Services, issued by the European Commission, which 24 Children’s Right to Play, Leisure and Creativity 3 it was asked to share its thoughts on.
Among the safety features that were mentioned in the Office’s feedback by way of example were the avoidance of horizontal bars in the design of railings and clear and enforced policies of non-admission of children to casinos and gaming parlours.

The Office recommended that once all aspects of safe accommodation for children were defined, these should be set as Europe-regulations that all accommodation centres in Europe would have to follow.
Right of Children with a Disability to Play The fact of having a physical disability is not absolute but is relative to the environment in which a person with disability lives in.

This does not mean that an exclusive environment should be created but that the very same environment in which we live should be modified to meet the individual needs of people living in their community.
When this is properly done, the physically and socially disabling effects of the person’s condition can be neutralised to a significant extent, resulting in improved inner well-being and social inclusion for the persons concerned.

This concept must be applied to all facets of the person’s environment, including, in the case of physically disabled children, to their need and right to play with other children.
The Office responded to the call for feedback by the focal point charged with writing Malta’s State Report for the United Nations Convention for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by pointing out that both National Standards that lay down specifications for the safety of outdoor play areas and indoor play areas respectively contained requirements to contain play equipment that is designed for use even by children with impaired or limited mobility.
for play areas Considerations and Concerns Age-appropriate entertainment for youngsters Four years have passed since the working group set up at the behest of the Office and chaired by the Commissioner finalised a draft piece of legislation proposing stricter regulations for the practice of teen parties and presented it to the responsible Ministers of the time (see Annual Report for 2011, pgs.

21-22).
21-22).

In such a long time, there has been little if any movement towards the implementation of this new legislation or towards any other attempt to close the loopholes in the current legislation (Subsidiary Legislation 10/40), despite the Office’s repeated attempts to sensitise the country’s political and civil authorities to the need for legislative change in this sector.

One acknowledges that during this period the Police have been more cautious with the issuing of permits for such events.
However, it would be naïve to think that teenagers who are under the minimum age for drinking alcohol have not been trying, often successfully, to access adult places of entertainment where not even those inadequate safeguards which the current legislation provides for apply.

The present situation is certainly not protecting party-goers, underage whose desire for evening entertainment is finding few safe outlets.
As a country, we are still far from providing children with an alternative age-appropriate decentralised scene entertainment 25 Children’s Right to Play, Leisure and Creativity Helping Talented Children The National Sport School that was inaugurated a few years ago and which is in the process of being upgraded through the building of new and bigger premises has provided children who have an innate sport ability with the opportunity to train at the level that is required for them to reach excellence in a particular sport discipline while also receiving an academic education of an equally high standard.
The Office believes that such initiatives should be extended to other vocational spheres particularly in the field of creativity, notably the arts, where the need is felt for similar structures dedicated to forming artists, actors and musicians of outstanding ability.

from the Paceville melee.

Youth cafes have been an excellent initiative launched in recent years but their number falls far short of the need and potential demand.
At the same time, it is not reasonable to expect entertainment for teens to be entirely state-sponsored.

The private industry needs to be encouraged to develop entertainment options that are both commercially viable and appropriate for this age-group.

This Office thus calls for a clear vision and strategy for pre-adult entertainment that is premised on the notion that safe and positive during the evening entertainment is an important stage in the growth path of teenage children.
Towards a regulated practice of sports by minors The regulatory vacuum which a mere glance taken by the Office at the practice of combat sports by minors has exposed is but the tip of an iceberg which includes many other sport disciplines which are not subject to any form of regulation in respect of minors.

The sector is in dire need of enforceable quality standards that can ensure that children benefit and are not harmed in any way whilst practising the sport of their choice.
The infrastructure for quality control is already there in the shape of the Malta Sports Council which needs to take on a more regulatory function whilst continuing to support sport organisations as providers of sports activities.
26 Children’s Right to Child-Friendly Justice 4 States Parties recognize the right of every child alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law to be treated in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child's sense of dignity and worth, which reinforces the child's respect for the human rights and fundamental freedoms of others and which takes into account the child's age and the desirability of promoting the child's reintegration and the child's assuming a constructive role in society.
(UN CRC, Article 40, 1) ….the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law.
(UN CRC, Article 12) A variety of dispositions, such as care, guidance and supervision orders; counselling; probation; foster care; education and vocational training programmes and other alternatives to institutional care shall be available to ensure that children are dealt with in a manner appropriate to their well-being and proportionate both to their circumstances and the offence.
(UN CRC, Article 40, 4) Recommendations Children serving a prison sentence is ultimately a disability from Incarceration participating in society which the law inflicts on those who are deemed to be dangerous to that same society.

It is thus a very high albeit fair price which individuals pay for their mistakes.
This is especially the case when incarcerated individuals are minors, hence are less able to cope with the angst of their lost freedom and more needful of participating in society for their personal development.

It is no wonder that the above-quoted sub-article of the Convention harps so strongly on the need for children who commit a criminal offence to be dealt with differently by the justice system.
This difference is reflected quite clearly in the Maltese correctional system where incarcerated child offenders are few and far between and serve sentences that are typically not longer than a few months.

More so, they are housed in facilities that are administratively and physically separate from those where adult offenders serve their prison sentences and which are known as the Young Offenders Unit Rehabilitation Services (YOURS).
In the course of the year, the Commissioner had the opportunity to visit the YOURS facilities.

The Commissioner expressed her satisfaction to the prison authorities with the fact that the facilities had been recently relocated away from the precincts of the Corradino Correctional Facilities.
At the same time, she communicated her disappointment that the facilities were still unable to cater for girl child offenders and that adult first-time offenders, who were often young in age but were not necessarily minors, were still being housed in YOURS.
The Commissioner stressed the need for the physical relocation of YOURS to be followed by a thorough overhaul of its function so that all child inmates would benefit from a therapeutic programme that was tailored to their needs and continuous with any other support programme followed by children before and/or after their stay in YOURS.
To this end the Commissioner suggested that is set up which consists of a working group representativs from YOURS, Agenzija Apogg, the Department for Educational Services and the Office of the Commissioner for Children.

The aim of this group is to explore methods and procedures in place and to ceate protocols which will provide continuous care, services and attention to those minors who are in prison.

The work of this group will continue throughout 2015.
27 Children’s Right to Child-Friendly Justice The Presence of Children in Court It is a well-known fact that not all environments are suitable for children and that the mere atmosphere of certain places makes children, especially younger children, feel ill at ease.

A court of justice and even its precincts is a prime example of an environment that is inimical to children owing to its air of gravitas and the often adversarial nature of the issues that are dealt with and resolved in a judicial court.
This means that children should not be anywhere near a court of justice unless their presence is necessary for the proper administration of justice.

This principle is very clearly reflected in Article 26 of the Code of Organisation and Civil Procedure which sets the age-threshold for admission of persons not involved in a court case into the precincts of a court of justice at 13 years.

The Office was asked by the Minister responsible for Justice, Hon.
Owen Bonnici, whether this regulation was in the best interests of children in the light of a case of a woman called to testify in court who was not allowed to take her baby with her inside the court.

In its reply to the Minister, the Office wrote that the aforesaid article did indeed serve the child’s best interests since it shields children from an environment that is inherently not child-friendly.
However, the Office reiterated its call for the design of a child- friendly space within the building of the Courts of Justice where children involved in court proceedings could be heard.

The Office further suggested that such a space, if properly manned, could also cater for children whose presence in court was constrained by logistical not judicial factors.
Participation in Children’s Rights- Related Networks and Fora Sensitive interviewing of child victims of violence by police officers The interviewing by police officers of children who have suffered violence presents two disparate needs: on the one hand, there is the need of the child to avoid experiencing retraumatisation or revictimisation from what they are required to say during the interview, and on the other, there is the need of the police officer representing the justice system to gather the necessary evidence for the prosecution of the perpetrator of the violence against the child.
Negotiating and reconciling these two needs requires well-trained police officers operating in a context of tailor-made, rights and evidence-based procedures for interviewing children.

This was the gist of the Office’s feedback on the draft text of the ‘Best practice guidelines for police officers dealing with minors who are victims of violence’, which was being discussed within the Law Enforcement Working Party, a preparatory body within the EU Council.
The Office also commented that maladroit interviewing of such doubly vulnerable children can lead not only to their retraumatisation or revictimisation but also to their involuntarily providing incorrect and unreliable information.
Considerations and Concerns Dealing with child offenders The upward revision of the criminal age of responsibility from nine to fourteen years of age that was legislated this year has been an important though long overdue step forward towards a more child-friendly justice system.
While there is no doubt that child offenders below the age of fourteen are benefiting just from being spared going through court proceedings, albeit within a Juvenile Court, it is also clear that they need a special kind of support that can be provided not so much through mainstream social services as through ad hoc therapeutic services and structures, which currently are missing or weak.

The Office thus renews its call for such care services and structures to be strengthened or set up.
A higher age of criminal responsibility should not divert our attention away from the needs of child offenders who are above the age threshold.

These children should receive the same kind of specialised support as child offenders who are not criminally responsible.

This means that YOURS has to metamorphose from a prison structure with a care component to a care structure with a prison component.
While maintaining its links with the justice system, YOURS needs to become an integral part of the social care system in order to benefit from synergies with other components of this system.

The Office thus calls for an adequate investment of resources to effect this paradigm shift.

28 Children’s Right to Health 5 States Parties recognize the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health.
States Parties shall strive to ensure that no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services.

(UN CRC, Article 24) Education and Consultation Children in hospital A period of hospitalisation, albeit necessary and possibly short, tends to deprive children of the simple pleasures of everyday life.

Those who love and care for children need to ensure that they still have the opportunity to experience these pleasures as much as possible during this trying time.
Mindful of this, the Commissioner visited the children in hospital at Christmas and at Easter time.

She had the opportunity to speak to the children, their parents and other relatives.

Each child was given a present to mark the event.

Being in a hospital can also be a daunting experience from a child’s perspective since the child is thrust in a strange and alien environment.
In order to make the environment of a hospital more hospitable and familiar to a child visiting it as a patient possibly for the first time, the Paediatric Practice Development Team found the support of the Office of the Commissioner for Children to spearhead a project to produce two colouring books featuring cartoon-like images of the various people and objects that children come across in hospital.
One book is being designed for children who visit hospital for the purpose of a medical consultation, investigation or treatment, whilst the other colouring book will address the orientation needs of children who are about to undergo a surgical intervention.

These two resources, will be published, launched and made available early in 2015.

Health of Unborn and Newborn Children.

The prenatal and neonatal periods are amongst the most critical stages in the development of a child.
More so, the child at this stage is so intimately linked to its mother that promoting and protecting the child’s health is the same thing as promoting and protecting the health and the health consciousness of the mother.

Malta has in place a system of laws that reflects this symbiosis vis-à-vis those environments which pregnant women and mothers of newborns frequent daily but over which they do not have full control, namely their places of work.
Notwithstanding this, the actions and concessions required by these laws are not always implemented spontaneously by employers whenever the need arises.

This requires women in employment to be aware of their rights so that they can seek and obtain the necessary protection and promotion of their health and that of their unborn and newborn children from their employers at their places of work.
The Office sought to address this need by teaming up with three entities, namely the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, the Department of Industrial and Employment Relations and Parent Craft Services within Mater Dei Hospital, to produce and disseminate a leaflet with information about the rights of pregnant women at the place of work.

The leaflet was published in both English and Maltese in order to reach out to all women.
Advocacy Children’s autonomy over their health Childhood is not a state of immaturity but a process of maturation.

This means that children acquire the ability to make sound judgments and decisions even 29 Children’s Right to Health on important matters related to their well-being as they progress through rather than from childhood.
A practical corollary of this is that this ability should be assessed not generically on the basis of the child’s age but individually according to how mature the child actually is.

This rule or procedure finds very fitting application in the sphere of health since the body is the most individual thing a person possesses.
Hence, the right to decide autonomously whether to receive or undergo medical counselling, investigations or treatment should be exercised without restraint as long as it is sustained by the necessary nous in the individual.

The Office has been advocating for the law to reflect the possibility for the child to exercise discretion over matters related to his/her health if s/he is found, according to a scientific assessment, to be mentally prepared to do so.
Its latest call to this effect was reiterated in a special edition of the Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights, published by the Faculty of Laws and the Foundation for International Studies of the University of Malta, which edition featured a number of papers and interventions delivered at the seminars and conferences organised by the Bioethics Committee.
Children in hospital There are not many places where the needs of children are met as conscientiously and attentively by the responsible professionals as they are in hospital.

This seemingly perfect scenario hides one important shortcoming.

The needs of children in hospital are more often than not defined by the people and the system that take care of them, and rarely by the children themselves.
Hence, a child receiving treatment in hospital is very often little more than that, a passive recipient of medical treatment whose personal experience of hospital is barely noticed let alone taken into account.
The Commissioner spoke in these terms when opening a seminar which was not about the voice of children in hospital but was the very voice of hospitalised children inasmuch as the panel of speakers was made up entirely of past and present child inpatients with the caring professionals sitting among the audience.
While thanking and praising the Paediatric Practice Development Team within Mater Dei Hospital for its initiative in organising the seminar, the Commissioner stressed the need for the voice of children in hospital to be encouraged and heard not merely through one-off events but through serious efforts to make listening to children in hospital a normal and integral part of the system of paediatric hospital care.

Tattoos It has already been said that the body is the most individual thing a person possesses.
Hence, by deduction one can conclude that any pictorial or calligraphic representation that an individual chooses to have imprinted on a part of his body, that is a tattoo, is not simply an ornament but an expression of what the individual believes himself to be, that is his self-identity.

Considering that tatoos are permanent and mostly indelible it is very important that one knows exactly what he/she is doing as you might have to carry this throughout your life.
This was the argument brought forth by the Commissioner for Children in an interview on the subject when defending the legal prohibition according to the Control of Tattooing Act (chapter 270) against the tattooing of minors.

Ms D’Amato argued that childhood and adolescence are phases of life during which the individual is discovering his unique identity and personality.
Therefore, the individual is really prepared to choose whether or not to have a tattoo and to choose what kind of tattoo to have only when this process of self-discovery is in its mature phase, which is generally the case by the time the individual turns eighteen.

The Commissioner said that the age-based restriction from tattooing should be presented to minors not as a prohibition but as an opportunity for them to learn who they really are and want to be.
Recommendations Road safety Making roads safe, especially for children, is a constant and complex challenge.

The authority responsible for road safety, Transport Malta, decided to address this challenge through the first Road Safety Strategy, which was issued for public consultation.

30 Children’s Right to Health 5 The Office analysed the draft strategy to ensure that the particular needs of children vis-à-vis road safety were adequately catered for.
In its feedback to Transport Malta, the Office showed its appreciation for the fact that a section of the strategy was dedicated entirely to the road safety needs of children, but recommended a more horizontal approach whereby each and every aspect of road safety is analysed and addressed from the perspective of children and their particular needs in terms of road safety.
Such an approach favours a more holistic and effective protection of children as road users inasmuch as it ensures that there are specific measures for children across the board.

The Office in fact lamented the lack of specific measures related to enforcement of road safety laws and regulations, and suggested a number of measures in this regard.
In its comments, the Office applauded the emphasis in the strategy on empowering children laid through education to use roads smartly, especially as pedestrians whereby it is essential for them to know from a young age how and when to cross a road safely.
The Office described its efforts in this direction, notably its publication and dissemination of the educational resource on road safety entitled, Fit-Triq ma’ Kinu and offered to collaborate with the authorities to go much further down the road of education.

Therapeutic Structures for Children with Mental Health Difficulties The diagnosis and treatment of children with mental health difficulties must be practised not only as a distinct health discipline but also within distinct health structures.
Hence, there must be a distinct and organised system of mental health care that runs in parallel to and is not enmeshed with the system of mental health care for adults.

This was the starting point of a presentation which the Commissioner for Children delivered to the Parliamentary Committee for Health, which met to take stock of the situation and the needs in this domain with the help of a number of experts in the field.
From this point, the Commissioner went on to discuss the strengths, weaknesses and needs of the system according to six other criteria, such as the ability of the system to be community-oriented, coordinated within itself and with other systems, and accessible to all children who may need it.
the recommendations made by Among the Commissioner were the need for child mental health outpatient services to be decentralised from their current concentration in the Child Guidance Clinic into the various community health centres; the need to provide an outreach service for children with acute mental health difficulties by extending the remit and competency of the Crisis Intervention Team; and the need to dedicate the Young People’s Unit to offer an in patient service to children going through an acute phase of mental health and that this should be for the shortest time possible.
The Commissioner concluded her presentation by calling for a serious and holistic programme of investment in the system of mental health care for children and adolescents.

Children in hospital Embracing the perspective of children can be seen as a three-stage process, which starts with encouraging 31 Children’s Right to Health children to speak their minds, listening to what they say, and, finally and crucially, taking their thoughts and feelings into account in revising the service.
The latter stage may require changes at a policy level which the people operating the service to children may not be able to bring about.

It was for this reason that the Commissioner followed up her participation in the aforementioned seminar by children in hospital with a letter addressed to the Parliamentary Secretary for Health, Hon.

Chris Fearne, in which she outlined the main concerns voiced by the children who spoke during the seminar.
These concerns, which the Commissioner offered as food for thought for an improvement of the hospital paediatric service, can be summarised in the following needs felt by children: - a key worker to accompany them throughout their care process; - greater involvement in the formulation of their care plan; - emotional support for their parents when they, the children, have to undergo a major surgical operation; - wards with adolescent-friendly décor; - a wider selection of food; - a child and adolescent-friendly environment within the Intensive Treatment Unit; - scheduling of hospital appointments outside school hours.
Healthy Eating The adoption of healthy eating habits is an important part of the optimal development of children.

This means that such good habits need to be promoted through plenty of education but must also be protected from aggressive marketing of unhealthy food products which is often targeted specifically at children.
The Office persisted in its bid to address the problem of school children across Malta being deliberately exposed to such marketing from ambulant vendors of junk foods who position themselves strategically close to school exits in the path of children leaving school to go back home.
Following the preparatory work carried out in 2013 in tandem with the Department for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention and the Directorate for Educational 32 Services, a close collaboration on this issue was also forged with the Directorate for Commerce and Transport Malta.
the issue, which The collaborating entities agreed on a holistic perspective on is seen as encompassing the key question of whether the kind of nutrition that is offered and promoted within schools, notably in school canteens and tuck shops, is in keeping with the vocation of schools to teach healthy eating to children.

If and when this becomes a reality in all schools, one should then turn one’s attention to addressing sources of unhealthy food outside the perimeter of school premises.
Breastfeeding Breastfeeding is as rich in health benefits for the baby as it is fraught with challenges for the mother.

One of these challenges lies in the lack of breastfeeding- friendly environments in public spaces where mothers who are out and about with their infants can breastfeed and feel comfortable doing so.
In a bid to address this challenge, the Commissioner for Children in a letter urged all local councils to set up designated areas within their localities which offered women the necessary privacy and comfort to breastfeed their babies.

At the same time, she also encouraged the Local Councils that this space can be used by parents to see to the needs of their children when for example they are out shopping.
A number of local councils showed their interest in this proposal and the Department for Health Promotion and Disease Prevention offered its technical support for this to happen according to specific standards.

Participation in Children’s Rights- Related Networks and Fora Female Genital Mutilation One benefit of the child’s rights perspective is that it erases at least in principle cultural discriminations between male and female children.
This is the case also with extreme and violent forms of culture-based discriminations between the two juvenile sexes, notably Female Genital Mutilation.

In recent years, the Office has been engaged with the Children’s Right to Health 5 a reference to ‘sexual and reproductive services’ to a UN resolution on the Rights of the Child, which reference, argued the Office, could be interpreted as sanctioning abortion.
Considerations and Concerns Health Behaviours of Children While the fundamental importance of health to the overall well-being of children is easily understood, it bears repeating that the right to health is not exercised passively or occasionally when children require a health care service or technology of some sort.

Children shape their health through their choices and behaviours all the time and in their most routine activities.
The quality and the quantity of food subject of FGM quite intensely, especially since the phenomenon of irregular migration from Africa has brought with it the spectre of this abhorrent practice.

In 2014, the Office liaised with the relevant authorities to ascertain if there had been any cases of girls who had undergone or were at risk of undergoing FGM.
This research was undertaken also in the context of the Office’s participation in a study commissioned by the European Institute for Gender Equality apropos FGM in the EU.

The Office learnt that up until February 2012, the cut-off date established for the periodic study, no cases of actual or potential FGM had manifested themselves to the authorities in Malta.
The Office also reported on the legal developments that had been registered the year before in connection with the fight against FGM, namely the provisions specific to FGM that were added to the Criminal Code in order to close all possible loopholes to this practice in Malta.
Unborn Child through laws for various the Commissioner The right to life of the unborn child is guaranteed including Children Act, Article 9h of which mandates Commissioner promote special care protection, and adequate including for legal protection, children both before and after birth”.
the “to Based on this mandate, the Office expressed its reservations with regards to a proposal the US made by Government to include 33 Children’s Right to Health Fortunately, the relevant authorities have not been oblivious to this situation but have been proactively trying to counter these negative trends and the negative cultures that feed them through a variety of strategies.
These efforts seem to be bearing fruit judging by the results of the latest Health Behaviour in School Children (HBSC) survey published in 2010, which show very encouraging decreases in the rates of smoking and drinking and in the rate of growth of overweight and obesity trends among children aged 11, 13 and 15 years.
should galvanize improvements These all stakeholders to intensify their efforts to promote healthful behaviours in children and to address those factors, such as the cost and availability of healthy foods and beverages, which may be hindering children hailing from economically disadvantaged backgrounds from engaging in such behaviours even if and when they want to.
children eat, and the quality and the quantity of sleep children get are good examples of simple things children do daily which impact very significantly on their health.

The key to promoting and the protecting optimal health in children is to impress on them what they should do and what they should not do to be as healthy as possible, and to make sure that they all have the right opportunities for engaging in healthful behaviours.
These principles become all the more important when they are seen in the light of what is happening out there in the world and lives of children where a significant number of them, especially in their teenage and preteen years, are making a habit of unhealthy behaviours like smoking, drinking and eating junk food, and are showing early possible signs of ill-health, such as by being overweight or obese.
34 Children’s Right to Education 6 States Parties recognize the right of the child to education and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity… (UN CRC, Article 28) Education and Consultation From Childhood to Adolescence Childhood is not a state but a process.
The stresses and challenges of being a child are related not so much to the different experiences that children go through as to the rapid, continuous and drastic changes, such as the changes of puberty, which generate these experiences and which can leave children feeling vulnerable and insecure.

This implies the need to prepare children for these changes by giving them the mental tools to be aware of and understand them in order to pre-empt the possibly traumatic effects of their sudden appearance.
trace The Office supported the publication of two printed resources which the metamorphosis of childhood through its various developmental stages and milestones.

The first resource, called Il-Mixja tal- Ħajja (The Walk of Life), is targeted at primary school children in Year 4.

The second resource, entitled Il-Vjaġġ mit-Tfulija saż-Żgħożija (The Journey from Childhood to Adolescence), is aimed at the slightly older age-group of children in their final year of Primary School, that is in Year 6.
Both resources were designed to be used as didactic tools for Personal, Social and Career Development (PSCD) education with the aforesaid age-groups.

Behind the production of these resources was the work of the Education Officers for PSCD, Mr Dunstan Hamilton and Mr Stephen Camilleri, both of whom penned the text in consultation with Dr Roderick Bugeja, an expert on sexual health.
The resources were richly and colourfully illustrated by Mr Daniel Caruana Lupi and Ms Marisa Cassar, two adolescents studying at the Institute of Art and Design within the Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology, and experiencing or having recently experienced the very same changes that are narrated in these books.

The latter will be launched in early 2015 for use in all primary schools.
35 Children’s Right to Education Learning in groups The fact that children are taught not individually but in classes is not a logistical necessity but an educational need since children learn better with others than alone.

This is especially true of very young children, who are able to focus their attention best in a collective learning space under a teacher’s constant and unmediated guidance.
Desirous of developing a needed educational resource that was tailored to the learning needs of very young children, the Office undertook to commission a Big Book in Maltese for use in and by kindergarten classes.

To this end, the Office collaborated with the Education Officer for Early Years, Ms Tania Mangion, and with the Institute for Art and Design within MCAST, towards the design of the verbal and visual content of a Big Book.
This resource is expected to be finalised, published and disseminated in 2015.

Educational achievement The educational value of education lies not only in what children achieve, that is mastery of a number of educational disciplines, but also in how they achieve this, that is through sheer application and committment.
The Commissioner spoke to children in these terms on many occasions when presenting them with prizes they were awarded by their schools for the high level of competence they had acquired in select areas of the educational curriculum.
Advocacy Compulsory school age A legally compulsory age of schooling is the most basic condition for the child to enjoy his or her right to education because it enables children to choose whether to stop or further their education only when they are mature enough to make such a pivotal decision, and because it enables those children who decide to discontinue their education to attain a level of education that allows them to function in society.
These two points were at the heart of the agreement expressed by the Office in a local daily with the idea floated by the Minister for Education and Employment to raise the ceiling of the compulsory school age from 16 to 18 years of age.

The Office argued that the decision about continuing with or stopping one’s education was so critical to the life prospects of a child that it should be taken when the child is of mature age.
Moreover, the prospects for employment and further training of children who stop their schooling when they are sixteen are not particularly bright since a secondary level of education falls short of the demands of today’s post- industrial knowledge-based society.
In its comments, the Office warned that raising the compulsory school age, though necessary, was not sufficient to guarantee children their right to education in that it would keep children longer but not necessarily make them more successful in schooling.

The Office thus called for a renewed effort to address the structural deficits within and between the educational and social systems in order to enable more children to make smooth progress in their educational pathway.
Hence, raising the compulsory school age, concluded the Office, would yield benefits only if it is part of a broader and coordinated strategy.

School Transport Issues relating to the mechanics and dynamics of education, are so complex that they often overshadow other issues that have to do with the logistics of education, that is with the availability and accessibility of well-resourced schools.
One of the thorniest logistical issues in education concerns how to get children to and from school safely and in time.

With many parents increasingly unable to accompany their children to and from school, a system of school transport is in place to meet this logistical need.
Necessary though the system is, having thousands of children shuttled to and from schools on large vehicles almost every day at roughly the same times in Malta’s already busy road network does not favour safe and timely school transport.

Mindful of these constraints, the Commissioner for Children, in an interview on the subject, underlined the need to make school transport safer and timelier.
The Commissioner said that any measures adopted should not only be conducive to safe and 36 Children’s Right to Education 6 the decision taken by the educational authorities running the Alternative Learning Programme (ALP) to allow students to smoke in a designated outdoor area within the school premises during school hours.
In her letter, the Commissioner stressed that this practice was illegal, in view of the Tobacco Act which prohibits smoking “in any classroom, corridor, yard or appurtenance of a school”; immoral in condoning the offence committed by those who would have illegally sold cigarettes or any other tobacco products to the children; and counter-productive because it undermined the joint efforts of the Education and Health Authorities to promote healthy lifestyles among school children.
The Commissioner also showed her concer as to how credible can the counter-measure adopted by the school authorities to provide anti-smoking education to the very same children whom they were allowing to smoke at school be.

She argued that when exposed to such mixed and conflicting messages children who smoked would listen exclusively to the message that resonated with their habit.
While describing the ALP as a very praiseworthy and much needed attempt to prevent early school leaving, the Commissioner maintained that the measure undermined the educational objectives of the programme.

Mrs D’Amato called on the Minister to abolish this concession that is being given to children.

timely school transport but should avoid impinging negatively on other aspects of children’s well-being.
In this respect, she cited the case of children who were forced to wake up very early in the morning to catch their school bus or van, saying that this was to the detriment of their health and their educational performance at school.

The best interest of children should always be paramount in designing the system of school transport, stressed the Commissioner.
Ethics in Education There is a tendency to regard ethics as something extrinsic to education and as a redline which teachers and students should not trespass.

This is a negative view of the role of ethics in education in that it implies that ethics is an issue in relation to education only when the ethical rules implicitly or explicitly governing an educational setting are broken.
In her address to the participants in a national conference organised by the Malta Union of Teachers with the theme ‘Legal Issues and Ethical Implications for Educators Working with Minors’, the Commissioner for Children sought to address this tendency by exploring how ethics and education were intrinsically related through the nexus of children’s rights.
The Commissioner argued that the rapport between educators and students was pivotal to the educational process and that mutual trust and discipline were vital for this rapport to prosper.

In her speech, Mrs D’Amato also invited her audience to consider the extraordinary potential of the internet to enhance or undermine the ethical and educational value of the teacher-student relationship according to how this instrument was used.
Recommendations Educating through school rules A school is not simply a place where teaching and learning happen but is a complex of written and unwritten rules of conduct and discipline which are not only educational in themselves but also favour the school’s pedagogical activity.

This thought was at the heart of a letter which the Commissioner for Children wrote to the Minister for Education and Employment, the Hon.
Evarist Bartolo, to air the disagreement of her office with 37 Children’s Right to Education In a written response to the Commissioner’s letter, the Minister thanked the Commissioner for her concerns about the adolescents following the ALP, and reassured her that their best interests were being promoted through the programme.

Safeguarding the privacy of school children School is a place where children, for the best part of the day, grow and develop physically and mentally.
This role that schools have requires them to be privy to facts about their student’s health, education, social condition and a host of other things that make up the individual identity of each student.

Schools do this by storing information about each child in databases.

While such storage gives schools the means to keep track of the situation and progress of each child under their responsibility, it also makes the privacy of the personal facts so stored much more vulnerable to violation by third parties.
This gives rise to the need for adequate legal and technical safeguards against the unwarranted disclosure of the personal data of students that is held by schools.
The principle of the privacy of anything that pertains to a child’s person, which is guaranteed by Article 16 of the Convention1 , was upheld by it the Office through the concerns expressed to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner, Mr Saviour Cachia, about the legal notice, ‘Data Concerning Persons in Educational Regulations’, Establishments for published by the Ministry Education and Employment.
The Office was critical of the legal notice which it felt to be too open and devoid of safeguards against the arbitrary and abusive transfer of student data.

In its written comments to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner, the Office argued that power to request the transfer of student data should be vested not in the Minister, as prescribed in the legal notice, but in an organisational entity whose use of such power would be subject to clear guidelines and regulations.
The Office endorsed the attempt made through the legislation to maximise the preparation of school children for further training and employment but argued that this aim should not be pursued at the expense of safeguards that protected the privacy of the personal data of students, since there could never be any trade-off between fundamental rights of children.
1“No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.
The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.” 38 Children’s Right to Education 6 The Offices’ concerns were presented by the Commissioner for Children in a meeting she had with the Information and Data Protection Commissioner, who had set up a working group to vet the legal notice against concerns related to data privacy and protection.

This vetting process culminated in the reformulation of the legislative text.
The Office, after analysing the revised law, concluded and communicated with the Office of the Information and Data Protection Commissioner that its concerns on the original legal notice were addressed in the reformulated text.
The Office suggested that the age of consent for the processing of personal data, which in the draft law was set at 16 years, be lowered to 14 years, on the grounds that this was the age threshold for legally shouldering some very weighty responsibilities, notably the responsibility for a crime.

Considerations and Concerns A plurality of educational pathways It is the aim of all states that aspire to social and economic development to enable every one of its citizens to realise his/her potential.
This mindset has allowed Malta to enact legislation requiring all children to receive up to a secondary level of education and mandating the provision of free quality-controlled education on a universal basis.

Positive though the ideal of universal education is, it tends to favour the formation of a monolithic idea of education whereby all children should go down the same educational pathway and receive the same education.
This idea is inherently flawed since it ignores the fact that all children are born with different inclinations and abilities.

This means that the key to a child’s education lies in identifying the child’s unique potential and charting the child’s educational pathway according to the child’s inner tendencies.
While it is beyond dispute that the basic skills of literacy and numeracy should be mastered by all children irrespective of their individual educational pathway, one feels that Malta’s educational system is still deeply rooted in the monolithic idea of education and that the educational experience that is offered to children is still not sufficiently diversified to meet the individual needs and inclinations of all students.
The time children are made to spend in generic schooling is some what long and the range of options available might be limited.

These factors may be leading children to lose interest in and abandon their education prematurely.

Important steps forward have been made in the recent past towards making our educational offering more plural and diverse.
Some vocational subjects have been introduced in secondary schools and a National Sports School that trains children who are gifted for sports in a particular sport discipline while providing them an academic education has been set up.

However, the road towards a fundamentally heterogynous education system that is able to meet the individual educational needs of all students is a long one.
One fundamental step that we need to make is to adjust our mindset to stop thinking of vocational education as a shelter for weak or failed students.
In this respect, it is important to take stock of the fact that vocational education is not limited to the teaching of traditional skills and trades, some of which have died or are in the process of dying, but includes a host of disciplines in the arts, sports and applied sciences that are very relevant to the social, cultural and economic needs of modern society.
Hence, the provision and accreditation of courses at secondary level in as wide a range as possible of vocational subjects needs to be further promoted.

At the same time as the education system should be able to impart a wide range of skills, children need to receive professional help from an early age to discover their inherent abilities and inclinations.

Children who resign themselves to the idea that they are not good for anything represent the worst failure of our education system.
39 Children’s Right to Education 40 Children’s Right to an Upbringing 7 States Parties shall use their best efforts to ensure recognition of the principle that both parents have common responsibilities for the upbringing and development of the child.

Parents or, as the case may be, legal guardians, have the primary responsibility for the upbringing and development of the child.

The best interests of the child will be their basic concern.
(UN CRC, Article 18) A child temporarily or permanently deprived of his or her family environment, or in whose own best interests cannot be allowed to remain in that environment, shall be entitled to special protection and assistance provided by the State.

(UN CRC, Article 20) Applications by a child or his or her parents to enter or leave a State Party for the purpose of family reunification shall be dealt with by States Parties in a positive, humane and expeditious manner.
(UN CRC, Article 10) States Parties shall... protect and assist such a child (unaccompanied minors) and to trace the parents or other members of the family of any refugee child in order to obtain information necessary for reunification with his or her family.

(UN CRC, Article 22) States Parties recognize the right of every child to a standard of living adequate for the child's physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development.
(UN CRC, Article 27) Research Fostering There is widespread agreement that the basic needs of the child for comfort, nutrition, guidance and love are best met within a system of stable, personal, harmonious and exclusive relationships which the child enjoys with at least one adult throughout the course of his or her childhood.

In many cases this is provided by at least one biological or adoptive parent.
However, there are times, when for various reasons the child’s parent/s is/are unable to sustain a suitable family framework for the child’s optimal development.

In these cases, it might be best if the child is placed within an alternative family setup through fostering, where the child’s continued development is guaranteed, until such time as the child’s biological family is able to function.
41 Children’s Right to an Upbringing The advantageousness of foster care in terms of the optimal development of the child over non-family- based forms of alternative care, notably residential care, was borne out by the results of the study commissioned by the Office into the situation of children in out-of-home care in Malta published in 2012.
Having obtained a solid scientific basis for its advocacy for foster care as the care mode of choice for children who need it, the Office was keen on ascertaining which factors or variables are conducive to a successful foster care placement that favours the healthy and harmonious development of the child, and, conversely, which factors lead to a breakdown of a foster care placement.

To this end, the Office commissioned a scientific study that is designed to provide clear answers to these questions.
This qualitative study, which is being conducted by Ms Marian Muscat Azzopardi and Dr Daniela Debono, two respected experts in the field of children’s rights and out-of-home care, is expected to be concluded by the end of 2015.

Recommendations Fostering By its very nature as described above, child fostering necessitates a solid legal framework which establishes clear parameters for determining by whom and until when children should be fostered.
In Malta, such a framework is in place in the shape of the Foster Care Act (Chapter 491 of Laws of Malta).

An internal review of the act was conducted within the Ministry for the Family and Social Solidarity with the aim of expanding the scope of fostering to include the possibility for the child to be permanently fostered and even adopted by his or her permanent foster carers.

The Office was asked to submit its feedback on the act under review.
Amongst its comments and proposals was a suggestion by the Office to articulate in the act the principle that any decisions concerning the choice of foster care type and placement should be taken in the best interests of the child.

The Office also commented that the access of foster carers to information about the fostered child should be broad but subject to safeguards that protect the child’s right to privacy.
Participation in Children’s Rights- Related Networks and Fora Child Marriage It is a simple corollary of the aforesaid fact that children have a fundamental need to receive material and emotional sustenance within a family that they should not try to give this sort of support to others by forming a family of their own.

The responsibility of marriage and of heading a family should be shouldered only by those who have reached the threshold of maturity, which our laws set at eighteen years of age.
This was the core position taken by the Office in its contribution to the formulation of a speaking note which the Government of Malta was set to deliver during an informal panel discussion on the subject of Child, Early and Forced Marriage that was to take place within the structures of the United Nations.
The Office further strengthened its stand against early marriage by children by arguing that this lessened the opportunities for children to advance their education beyond compulsory schooling to an educational level that would give them the best possible prospects for inclusion in today’s knowledge-based society.

In view of all of the above factors, the Office hinted that the minimum age for marriage, which the Marriage Act sets at sixteen years of age, should be raised to eighteen years of age.
The Office commented positively on the fact that social pressures in favour of early marriage, especially in cases of unplanned pregnancies, were much weaker in today’s society.

Today alternative routes to early marriage were being pursued to address cases of pregnant girl children, notably the holistic state- provided support service, known as Servizz Għożża, which follows up unmarried pregnant girls even after they would have given birth.
In its comments, the Office warned that termination of pregnancy should never be considered in the case of early and unwanted pregnancies since it violated the right to life to the unborn child.

Family Reunification Another reason why a child may be unable to live with his or her family is family dispersion.
This is often caused by the migration of some members of a family 42 Children’s Right to an Upbringing 7 The lack of documentation of their personal identity can give rise to a laborious process to ascertain that they are minors.
Until this process is completed, which can take up to a few weeks, unaccompanied minors can be deprived of the special assistance that is accorded to child irregular migrants on account of their age, notably the fact that they can bypass the detention system and immediately enter the care system.
The Office welcomes the fact registered, for the first time ever that in 2014, newly arrived irregular far away from the family household or even the displacement of all members of a family to different and far flung places.

Such situations are addressed by international law (including by the above-quoted articles of the Convention), which confers on the members of dispersed families the right to family reunification.
As a member of the European Union and therefore party to the Dublin Regulation, Malta is bound to do everything in its power to facilitate the reunification of families some of whose members are living in its territory.

The effort towards family reunification requires very close and structured coordination amongst a variety of different governmental inter-governmental and semi-, non- and entities.
Defining the precise mechanics of such coordination was the purpose of PRUMA (Promoting Family Reunification and transfer of Unaccompanied Minor led by Asylum Seekers), a project the for International Organisation Migration whose main deliverable was the formulation of Standard Operational Procedures to govern such coordination.
Although the Office of the Commissioner for Children does not play an operational role in the effort to enable children with their families living abroad, it nevertheless to participate in the debate amongst the various stakeholders.

The aim of the Office was to ensure that children’s rights were being respected throughout the process and that the principle of the best interest of the child was supreme.
unaccompanied migrant living in Malta to reunite accepted Considerations and Concerns Unaccompanied Minors Children who migrate to Malta irregularly, unaccompanied and often with no documentation as to their age, family and country of origin face very stiff challenges in terms of receiving the care and support they need.

43 Children’s Right to Education migrants who were not necessarily prima facie minors, but claimed to be so were upon their arrival, placed in an open centre for unaccompanied minors.
This reversed a long-standing policy that had them all confined to detention until such time as their age claim could be verified.

It is very positive that the authorities have finally realised that the psychological harm that is inflicted on a minor even by a short period of detention far outweighs the possible repercussions of an undetained adult migrant falsely claiming to be a minor on national security.
Notwithstanding this important step forward that has been made in the care of unaccompanied minors, the Office is deeply concerned that a significant number of these minors, who in accordance with national law are all placed under a care order, are going missing.
One understands that this phenomenon mirrors the pattern followed by many adult migrants who after landing in Malta move northward to other countries in Europe, and that it is but a continuation of their migratory journey in search of a better life.
However, one expects the relevant authorities, as the legal guardians of unaccompanied minors who go missing, to make the necessary efforts to trace their whereabouts, ensure they are receiving the necessary care and protection and transfer guardianship to the authorities of their new host country.
At the same time, there needs to be a stronger and more structured effort to enhance the social and economic integration of unaccompanied minors in a way that meets their needs and aspirations, to facilitate their reunification with their families in other European countries, and to prepare and facilitate their safe and orderly transition to other host countries where they may aspire to live.
44 Children’s Right to the Promotion and Protection of their Dignity 8 States Parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse, while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child.
(UN CRC, Article 19) States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.
(UNCRC, Article 32) The child shall be registered immediately after birth and shall have the right from birth to a name, the right to acquire a nationality and, as far as possible, the right to know and be cared for by his or her parents.

(UN CRC, Article 7) No child shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his or her privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his or her honour and reputation.
(UN CRC, Article 16) States Parties shall take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form.

(UN CRC, Article 35) Recommendations Preventing ill-treatment of confined children Children who require or are required to live and receive care in a secure place which they are not free to leave at will can easily be forgotten even by those who are committed to the cause of children’s rights.
Hence, special legal and monitoring instruments are needed to constantly and strongly remind Governments and civil societies about the particular needs and vulnerabilities of these children.

It is no wonder then that the United Nations and the majority of its affiliated countries felt the need to supplement the UN CRC with an Optional Protocol against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
This protocol aims to protect children who are deprived of their ill-treatment of any kind.

This legal instrument is equipped with liberty from suffering a monitoring mechanism in the form of a sub- committee whose remit is to prevent children living in secure environments in countries that are party to the protocol from being victims of any form of ill- treatment.
The sub-committee conducts its work inter alia by liaising with national rights bodies to gain an independent insight into the situations prevailing in a given country’s secure environments where children may be living.

This cooperation came to the fore in a meeting which the sub-committee held with four such bodies in Malta, one of them being this Office.
During this meeting, the Commissioner explained the concerns of her Office in relation to a number of groups of children in vulnerable situations, namely incarcerated children, migrant children in administrative detention, children receiving forced care in a mental health institution, as well as children in residential out-of-home care, who though not deprived of their liberty face a risk of becoming institutionalised.
45 Children’s Right to the Promotion and Protection of their Dignity Gender identity The essence of an individual’s identity does not lie in the formal process whereby the individual’s personal details, such as name, sex and nationality, are publicly registered.
Important as this procedure is, the core of a person’s identity is found in a subtle and subjective cognisance of oneself which though strongly influenced by the identity that others attach to the person from birth is also capable of shaping itself independently from and contrarily to the person’s public identity.

A very close match between the inner and outer identities is thus vital for a person to feel and be happy and well-adjusted.
The sex that a person identifies with, that is his or her gender, is not only a very integral part of personal identity but also a very critical one at that since it does not always correspond to the person’s biological characteristics.

A mismatch between sex and gender is widely accepted as not arising from any sort of pathological condition.
This means that a person should not only be able to correct a mismatch between his or her gender and biological sex in favour of his or her gender, through sex reassignment surgery, but should also be in a position to rectify a mismatch between his or her gender and registered gender, through a change in his or her official personal details.
It was within this conceptual framework that the Office analysed and responded jointly with the Maltese Paediatric Association to the Gender Identity Bill that had been presented by Government in Parliament.

In their joint comments, the two entities took issue with the fact that the bill gave the power of decision to change the registered gender of a child to the child’s parent/s or legal guardian/s.
The two entities were also critical of the fact that the Bill attached weak and unclear conditions to the right of the child concerned to express his or her views on the matter, and to the duty of those making the decision for the child to consider the best the interest of child.
46 Children’s Right to the Promotion and Protection of their Dignity 8 The two entites welcomed the aim of the Bill to facilitate changes of registered gender, but argued that while the presentation of a notarial deed as the only requirement for a change of registered gender was a good thing for persons who were mature enough to know that their gender did not match their sex, it was not necessarily in the best interest of children, whose gender identity and awareness thereof may not be fully or sufficiently developed.
Another point of contention made by the two entities in their joint comments concerned the possibility opened up by the Bill to delay the registration of the gender of a child with dual sexual characteristics up to when the child is fourteen.

The two organisations warned that leaving a child genderless for so long could have a negative impact on the child.

Child Trafficking Children are persons with particular needs, thoughts and feelings that must be allowed to be met and expressed.
When this logic is turned on its head, children are seen as objects that can be useful towards the satisfaction of an interest or desire of a person or group of people.

On a mass scale, this thwarted logic leads to the merchandisation of children, their illicit capture and trafficking to places where they are subjected to sexual abuse, forced labour and many other possible evil ends.

Child trafficking festers in situations that make children vulnerable and deprives them of their rights.
This implies that child trafficking can be prevented through actions that target children who are in such situations.

‘Catch and Sustain’ is a pan-European project which seeks to create an exchange platform and methodology that can help prevent child trafficking.

In Malta, the project, which is being led by the Maltese voluntary development organisation KOPIN, is targeting unaccompanied minors, a group of children who are particularly exposed to the threat of child trafficking.
The concrete aim of this project is the development of a toolkit, which can guide all stakeholders involved in dealing with unaccompanied minors who are potential or actual victims of child trafficking.

As partners with KOPIN on this EU project, the Office contributed regularly during discussions as well as financially towards the realisation of the toolkit that is expected to be launched early in 2015.
The Continuum of Care for Juvenile Offenders of the Correctional emphasised that fact care has In the last quarter of 2014, the Commissioner for Children visited the new facility for male juvenile is housed offenders (YOURS) which Corradino outside Facilities.

While on her visit, the Commissioner voiced concern about her continuum of the juveniles care in detention.

She the this to encompass a c a d e m i c , e m o t i o n a l and behavioural support.
She also pointed out that children in detention have the same rights as other for example education and hence they must be given the same opportunities to meet the achievement standards as other children.

In addition, it is of utmost importance to provide children, who have been in conflict with the law, with education and support to make sure that they are not engulfed in a vicious circle of crime.
children, compulsory to Hence with the above in mind, the Commissioner for Children asked for a series of follow up meetings with representatives of the main stakeholders, namely the Department of Student Services (DSS), Appoġġ and YOURS, in order to collaborate further towards the establishment of a protocol with clear standard operating procedures with regards to support from the DSS and Appoġġ, when a child has to be detained at YOURS, even if for a short period.
So far, two meetings have been held between the Commissioner and representatives from the above mentioned stakeholders, while more are being projected for 2015.

47 Children’s Right to the Promotion and Protection of their Dignity Participation in Children’s Rights- Related Networks and Fora Corporal Punishment Correcting children’s wrong behaviour is an essential part of their maturing process.
Correctional measures must ensure not only that children understand what is wrong with their behaviour and why it is wrong, but also that even when faced with possible punitive action they are given the opportunity to rectify their behaviour.

Punishment that inflicts bodily pain on children, known as corporal punishment, fails to meet any of the above criteria.
While it can be effective in bringing a child to stop his or her errant behaviour, it is not educational since it does not enable a child to understand and to willingly correct the behaviour for which they are punished.
Corporal punishment is wrong also because it is often an expression of anger and frustration by the parent or carer towards the child, which means that it poses a risk of the punishing adult losing control and not only physically harming the child but also instilling in the child a sense of fear and resentment.

For all these reasons, corporal punishment should never be sanctioned by law, policy or popular culture as a legitimate form of disciplinary action against misbehaving children.
In this light, it was with satisfaction that the Office reported to the Council of Europe for the purpose of the compilation of the latter’s Annual Report that the Maltese Parliament had recently unanimously approved a bill that set any kind of corporal punishment of children outside the bounds of moderation, hence outside the bounds of legality.
Gender and Sexual Identity The needs of those whose gender and/or sexual identity is different from that which is publicly assigned to them, who are referred to as LGBTI, are often poorly understood if not ignored outright.

This requires that the voice of LGBTI people, including LGBTI children, is given the opportunity to make itself heard in as many public fora as possible.
48 The Office took this stance when endorsing the participation of two non-governmental organisations working in the field of LGBTI rights in a meeting organised by the United Nations to mark the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Considerations and Concerns Corporal Punishment This has been a good year as far as the effort to abolish the practice of corporal punishment of children in Malta is concerned.
While a Positive Parenting approach has been advocated by various stakeholders for some time, the Government has now published the first policy on positive parenting.

This will help us to promote more firmly a positive approach against a negative practice inasmuch as it offers parents and carers of young children a healthy alternative to corporal punishment for the purpose of educating and disciplining children.
One hopes that this policy will quickly be followed by a strategy with strong actions and clear timeframes that can yield concrete results in terms of shifting the parenting culture in Malta away from corporal punishment towards positive parenting.
the legislative On the aforementioned front, changes to the criminal code which render corporal punishment of any type and degree illegal has been a crucial step forward in removing legal loopholes which people arraigned with charges of physically abusing children under their care could exploit to their advantage, and in promoting the same culture change which the policy on positive parenting will try to bring about.
While removing the concept of corporal punishment from our Criminal Code is a very positive development, corporal punishment has not yet been entirely blacklisted in our laws since the concept of ‘reasonable chastisement’ as a legal bound for corporal punishment on children by their parents is still present in the Civil Code.

The Office thus calls for legislative action in Parliament to remove Article 154 (a) in the Civil Code so that corporal punishment is abolished in both our Criminal and Civil Code.
Conclusion 9 Underpinning all actions undertaken by the Office is the fact that it is an entity that is not just about children but is for children, as its very name shows.

To be effective and relevant the Office not only acts on behalf of children and in their best interests but also listens to children in order to understand their innermost needs and desires.
Many of the actions described in this report were initiated by the Office on the basis of personal complaints, views and preoccupations which children shared in confidence with the Office.

It is this very same need to understand what children think and feel that prods the Office to commission scientific research in specific areas of children’s rights.

At the same time, the Office is aware that children are able to articulate their concerns only insofar as they are knowledgeable about their rights.
The report shows how active the Office has been in educating children about their rights and where they should seek help when their rights are violated.

This is all the more significant when one considers that a substantial part of the personal issues which children shared with the Office arose during educational activities organised by the Office.

in The Office can make a concrete difference children’s lives by being their voice in all decision- making arenas.
This can happen only if it teaches children the language of their rights and listens to what they have to say.

This is what the Office of the Commissioner for Children has striven and will keep striving to do.

It is hoped that the advancement that has been registered along the years since the setting up of the Office in 2003, will continue to gather momentum and we further concentrate on the various initiatives and issues that affect children.
While awareness raising is an essential component of our work towards the full and significant achievement of children’s rights, this needs to be coupled with co-ordinated and holistic action and according to clear and measurable targets and timeframes in the best interest of children.

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