Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1480753
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 2 OCTOBER 2022 OPINION 11 Renee Laiviera is Commissioner of the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality Now is the time to empower girls those 30 pro-life participants (or some of them, anyway), and Si- mon Debono himself responded to the above farce as if it really did add up some kind of 'moral victory' for their own cause. And they even celebrated it, too! Debono, for instance, crowed: "A Victory for the Pro Life Move-ment. Vast Majority of Youths in the Maltese Parlia- ment voted against Abortion. This is what win-ning looks like. And not a single Stabile Sign or Graffiti Drum in sight.." And even more bizarrely, some of the 30 voters who engineered this manifest distortion of de- moc-racy, actually stated that: "We are proud to share the news that all of the proposals and amend-ments put forward by pro-life youth were voted for with an absolute majority, reflecting the reality that most Maltese youth value life…" Erm… sorry, but what do they mean by 'reflecting reality', ex- actly? Because last I looked, all indica-tions were pointing to- wards a rather different reality, you know: one in which the sort of 'pro-life absolutism' that these people so clearly advocate, was actually in decline. Now: I am aware that our own polls are not necessarily an ac- curate 'reflection of reality', ei- ther… but the latest one showed that "an absolute majority [53%] believe that women who have an abor-tion should not be sent to prison…" And more specifically, that: "The young aged between 16 and 35 are the strongest oppo- nents to sending women to pris- on, with 71.1% disagreeing with existing legislation. Among the young, 16.7% agree with sending women who have an abortion to prison." Bearing in mind that the entire topic of this 'mock-parliamen- tary debate' – and incidentally: never before has the adjective 'mock' been so adequately ap- plied – was precisely 'the decrim- inalisation of abortion'… I think we can all see, right there, that the 'massive majority' secured by that 'mock-parliamentary vote, was every bit as credible as Pu- tin's 99.9% approval ratings in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. But with one, glaring difference. For while the rest of the world – including Malta's government, and opposition parties – were very quick to condemn Putin's grotesque parody of democracy, last week… there has been no lo- cal condemnation of the pro-life lobby's equally abhorrent antics in Malta's Parliament, so far. And not only has the outcome of this farcical vote been 'allowed to stand'… but it will even be 'presented to the Prime Minis- ter, the Opposition leader and the President of the Republic', no less (You know: the same three political leaders who have on- ly just vociferously condemned Vladimir Putin, for doing exactly the same thing in Ukraine). At which point… I have to admit I am seized by a sudden doubt. Is it really the Maltese pro-life lob-by that's taking les- sons from Vladimir Putin? Or is actually the other way round? MORE than ever, girls' voices are rising. We are witnessing young women as agents of positive change, organizing and leading global movements. Fridays for the Future, which seeks to tackle climate change and the #MeToo movement against sexual vi- olence and harassment, are showing the power of girls as changemakers. With this year's United Nations theme, 'Our time is now – our rights, our future,' we commemorate the 10th anniversary of the International Day of the Girl Child. This theme calls for greater attention, in- vestment, and action on strengthening services for girls at all times, particularly during crisis response and recovery, pro- moting girls in leading positions and pro- viding resources that support girls' educa- tion and well-being. Over the past years, various initiatives were undertaken in Malta to address the underrepresentation of women and girls in employment and in decision-making po- sitions. Such initiatives in- clude free childcare services, breakfast club, Klabb 3-16 afterschool pro- gramme, in-work benefit scheme, fam- ily-friendly meas- ures, flexible work arrangements, and the gender corrective mechanism, amongst others. Despite these in- itiatives, and de- spite gains in gender equality, "indicators show that the girl child is discriminated against from the ear- liest stages of life, through her childhood and into adulthood". Around 30% of women worldwide aged 15 years and older have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life. Moreover, 12% of 15-year old girls have been cyber- bullied by messages at least once compared to 7% of boys, which consequently hinder girls from feeling comfortable using digital tools. Gender segregation is still a powerful so- cial phenomenon, mostly evident in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In fact, in Mal- ta, only 10.3% of female graduates choose to pursue a career in STEM, compared to 32.5% of male graduates. The underrepresentation of women and girls is not limited to STEM subjects, since women continue to be underrepresented at all levels of political leadership. This is be- cause girls are less likely to be encouraged to learn about and participate in society's social, political, and economic functioning, resulting in not being given the same op- portunities as boys to participate in deci- sion-making processes. All barriers must therefore be eliminated to enable girls to reach their full potential. In this context, putting an end to all forms of discrimination against the girl child has been highly placed on the international agenda. Indeed, in 1995, the adoption of the Beijing Decla- ration and Platform for Action, became "the most compre- hensive policy agen- da for gender equal- ity", which upholds the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Dis- crimination against Women (CEDAW). The CEDAW en- tered into force in 1981, and "set an in- ternational standard for what was meant by equality between women and men". On a national lev- el, the National Commission for the Promotion of Equal- ity (NCPE) works to promote gender equality. The NCPE is empowered to investigate complaints of alleged discrimination on the grounds of sex/gender and family respon- sibilities in employment, education and vocational training, by banks and financial institutions as well as in the provision of goods and services. Moreover, the NCPE works to safeguard gender equality by creating awareness-rais- ing campaigns and providing training to different groups of women and men on challenging and addressing gender stereo- types. On the International Day of the Girl Child, let's recognize the challenges girls are facing in today's world. Now is the time to empower girls to embrace their rights! Renee Laiviera Around 30% of women worldwide aged 15 years and older have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life Young people taking part in the National Youth Parliament debated a motion calling for the decriminalisation of abortion