TMID Editorial: Issues concerning children
There are a number of troubling issues concerning children in Maltese society that have come to light recently.
The first revolves around marriage. The Office of the Commissioner for Children said that the legal age of marriage should be raised to 18 years to specifically prevent children from being promised to marriages arranged by their parents.
“The Office has always advocated for the legal age of marriage to be raised to 18 years (current legislation allows 16 and 17 year olds to marry with the consent of their parent/guardian), specifically for children to be promised to arranged marriages. from their parents,” she said.
Really and truly, the age of marriage should be raised to 18. 16 and 17 is too young to get married, and the maturity needed to make such a decision is simply not there. Now it’s not as if at 18 a switch is flipped and a person suddenly matures, but two years at that age will see changes in terms of maturity levels.
Another worrying issue is that cultural and legal experts have said recently The Malta Independent on Sunday that child marriages are not technically a crime in Malta under the nation’s criminal code. Girls as young as 12 were reported to be disappearing from their classrooms after marrying older men. Experts said that individuals who engage in this practice can only be prosecuted on the basis of “child abuse” as the law does not recognize any of these marriages.
This is unacceptable. One child in such a situation is one child too many. The laws of the country must be amended immediately to remedy this situation.
The Commissioner’s Office also said that early and forced child marriage (CEFM) has been a concern for a number of years and has continuously advocated for adequate protection of children. “Even if there are measures in place to protect children from CEFM, stronger efforts should be made to raise awareness about the harmful effects of CEFM; to strengthen the training of professionals and other key persons as well as to improve mechanisms and procedures to better identify children at risk,” she said.
We must strengthen our laws and fight to ensure that no child is ever abused in this way. Forced marriages should be met with very strong legal and criminal repercussions and we must do our best to protect the victims of such practices.
There are other issues regarding children that have come up in recent years. Such concerns are related to cannabis legislation. One wonders how, exactly, the authorities will ensure that people do not smoke inside their homes when children are around? In an ideal society, no parent would do such a thing, but realistically, with the world as we know it, there could be such a guarantee.