A bureaucratic issue that is threatening to lead to the expulsion of a group of non-EU children and forcing some to miss school should be discussed with urgency by parliament’s Family Affairs Committee, the Nationalist Party said on Wednesday.
PN MP Claudio Grech, who serves as party spokesperson for children’s rights, has written to the committee chair and asked for an urgent meeting to discuss the situation. Officials involved in the issue should also be invited to attend the committee meeting, Mr Grech said in his letter.
Times of Malta has revealed how a group of non-EU children could be forced to leave their families and be sent back to their home nations, due to a bureaucratic dispute over family income.
Identity Malta says the families do not make enough money to keep their children in the country under local laws.
Furthermore, Times of Malta has also revealed how a group of children have skipped the entire first term of this scholastic year because Identity Malta is refusing to accept their residence applications, due to a dispute over family income.
For a non-EU child to be enrolled in school, parents must present a special blue receipt issued by Identity Malta when residence applications are submitted. Given that the children have been unable to apply, they have also been prevented from enrolling in school.
The revelations prompted condemnation from Education Commissioner Charles Caruana Carabez, who said that any law preventing children from attending school was illegal, as well as from other organisations which advocate social wellbeing.
Labour MP Rosianne Cutajar, who chairs the Family Affairs Committee, has also called on the children to be sent to school while the bureaucratic issues are resolved.
“What blame do these children have?” she asked.
In a statement, Mr Grech said that the PN was keeping a close eye on the matter and hoped that common sense would prevail and the children’s interest safeguarded.
He noted that the Minors Protection Act, approved by parliament unanimously, made it clear that children's best interest had to be safeguarded and upheld at all times.