Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/649887
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 6 MARCH 2016 15 ing a street or square to traffic, people might complain… there's always tension between the busi- ness community, for instance, or commuters who drive through the locality, and the wider com- munity itself. It's not easy to reach a compromise. But we really need to raise awareness on the need for more spaces for young peo- ple. Something needs to be done about it." This is not the only problem the Children's Commissioner has recently voiced concern over. Moving away from the question of 'where children play', there is the more sinister question of how safely they can play. Not just with regard to obvious physical dan- gers such as cars on the road… but, more insidiously, the hidden dangers through which children can (often unwittingly) find them- selves the objects of exploitation or even abuse. One issue that Miceli has often raised concerns the representation of children on the media, both on and offline. Recently, for instance, she complained about the blatant use of children as fund-raising tools during charity events. "It worries me to see advertise- ments in which children are bla- tantly used to engender emotions of sympathy. A sick or under- privileged child being used to raise money for charity, for instance. It makes me very uncomfortable. Are we going back to a time when children were trotted out with begging bowls in the street?" Miceli points out how that kind of advertising reminds her of sto- ries she heard from people who were raised as children in institu- tions. "Some of those stories were shocking. There was one woman who told me that the nuns used to take her out as a child – and they chose her because she was blonde and sweet-looking – so that peo- ple would take pity on her, and give more donations to the insti- tute. There were others who even said their ability to eat depended on how much money they could raise by begging. Can you believe it?" This was, admittedly, in an age before social welfare. "But it didn't necessarily end with the advent of social welfare. In Gozo especially, this used to happen until fairly re- cently: children were forced to go out with begging bowls. So is this what we're going back to do with this kind of advertising? Because ultimately, it is really just beg- ging… literally begging." Meanwhile, there are other less literal forms of 'begging'. Some time back, one of Miceli's prede- cessors had complained about the use of children in political cam- paigns. There was one specific billboard in the 2008 election with the face of a child (also blonde and sweet-looking, come to think of it) to which she had particularly ob- jected, on the basis that – in a po- litical culture as perniciously con- frontational as Malta's – the child could conceivably be 'targeted' as a result. Have any regulations been drawn up to prevent this since then? "More than regulations, what is needed are clear guidelines. But no, there still aren't any today. By the next election, however, this will have changed. Our attention has been drawn to this, by a per- son (active in politics) who recent- ly told me: if you want us to follow guidelines by the next elections, they will have to be drawn up now. After this year it will be too late… because preparations for the cam- paigns: marketing, billboards and so on, will begin soon…" So has work on these guidelines already begun? "Yes. We have applied with the standards authority, and the ball has been set rolling. If all goes well, hopefully we'll have the guidelines in place by the time the election campaign begins." Interview Are our children paying the price for excessive urbanisation? Are they being exploited (even unwittingly) by a culture that is increasingly being commodified? Children's Commissioner PAULINE MICELI warns against robbing Malta's children of their childhood children play?