The Divorce Movement said today that rather than a leap into the dark, divorce was a leap from the dark into the light of hope.

The movement was reacting to a billboard by the anti-divorce movement which has portrayed divorce as a leap into the dark.

Divorce Movement spokesman Michael Falzon told a press conference that scaremongering was a feature throughout the history of referenda in Malta, but the last time the fear of a leap in the dark was raised was ahead of the independence referendum. Scaremongering continued during the EU membership referendum.

Some people, he said, used scaremongering tactics because they had no other tools to use.

He said that many untruths were being said about the economic consequences of divorce. He insisted that women who were granted maintenance through separation proceedings would be able to keep that maintenance under the proposed divorce legislation.

And contrary to what some elderly people were being told, the governemnt would still have money to pay out their pensions, he said.

Mr Falzon said individual members of the Society of Christian Doctrine (Museum) were among those who were scaring some elderly people, although he said this was not an initiative of the society itself.

Asked for a reaction to the comments by the Bishop of Gozo, Mr Falzon said the Divorce Movement was not in dialogue with Mgr Grech, but the bishop had a right to put across his views. Now it was up to the people to decide.

Furthermore, those who said they were offended by the use of the word bghula in a Divorce Movement billboard might reflect on the use of the word briganti.