"We are not a soft target"

Foreign Minister Michael Frendo said yesterday that Malta would continue to offer protection to genuine refugees, but it would resolutely not allow itself to be used by human traffickers.

"Malta will not allow itself to be held to ransom by the human traffickers. Malta will insist that while it will protect genuine refugees and those entitled to humanitarian assistance, it will not allow itself to become the dumping ground of international criminal organisations involved in human trafficking."

Speaking in Parliament at the end of the debate on a Bill amending the Refugees Act, Dr Frendo said these amendments were important because Malta would be able to immediately deport all those migrants who submitted manifestly-unfounded applications for refugee status. The Bill also provided for the appointment of more Refugee Commissioners so that the processing of applications for refugee status would be speeded up.

Dr Frendo said the human traffickers had eyes and ears in all places where migrants were landed. When a particular country was seen to be weaker than others, they targeted it.

"We are not a soft target, we know how to defend our rights and we will let no one blackmail us," Dr Frendo said.

He said Malta was raising the pressure in international fora for action on illegal migration. As he had pointed out when he wrote to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, all-round action needed to be taken against illegal migration because this was also harming the case of the genuine refugees who were fleeing political or racial persecution and deserved protection.

Dr Frendo stressed that all those who argued about illegal migration should make the distinction between the genuine refugees and the economic refugees. While all countries had a moral and legal duty to protect the former, the influx of illegal migrants and the consequent problems were created by the latter, who were being used by international criminal organisations for profit. Malta could not allow itself to be used by these organisations and become their dumping ground.

However Malta would remain careful in weeding out the genuine refugees from the others. Thus the refugee application process would remain and it would only be the "manifestly-unfounded" applications which would be immediately rejected and the applicants repatriated as soon as possible.

Dr Frendo said another way to fight illegal immigration was by raising development aid to the countries which the migrants fled in their search for a better life. International development aid was being raised by Malta in the various international fora.

The Maltese were always generous in humanitarian assistance, and it was important to also instil a culture of development aid.

The EU was the biggest donor of development aid in the world, and one could only hope that there would come a time when development in sub-Saharan Africa would be such as not to lead to so many people moving away.

Turning to repatriation, Dr Frendo said that in terms of the Cotonou agreement between the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific countries, when a citizen of the signatories was found illegally in one of the EU states, the country of origin would accept him back without the need for any other agreement. Malta was insisting with the EU that this clause should be respected and that development aid to these countries should be conditional on their respecting this agreement.

Concluding, he said Malta would shelter those who were being persecuted, but those who were here without justification had to be repatriated according to the Cotonou agreement.

Earlier in the debate, Labour MP Joe Debono Grech said complaints over illegal immigrants were increasingly being based on racist sentiments. While there was concern over immigrants coming from the African continent, few took notice of foreigners from Bulgaria, China and Russia who established themselves in Malta irregularly.

He complained that the EU was not being responsive enough to the situation facing Malta. Both sides of the House should cooperate to fight this phenomenon and make sure the issue was better known abroad.

The fight against illegal immigration, however, should respect Malta's Christian values. He could not agree with the way the Australian authorities had left boat people out at sea. Nor could he agree with anyone who said migrants found near Malta should be allowed to fend for themselves, whatever their situation.

He observed that Egyptian immigrants were recently repatriated because their country of origin was identified. In that light he asked about the means the government had to establish the country of origin of immigrants who did not carry any documentation.

One had to admit that the trafficking of immigrants was being organised. This was evident from the appearance of the immigrants when they arrived in Malta. Clearly, they would not have been on a long voyage.

Mr Debono Grech said it was shameful that immigrants were being exploited and even robbed by Maltese employers. There had even been cases where nuns and priests had been insulted when they faced such employers and demanded an end to such exploitation.

Malta, Mr Debono Grech said, needed to tackle illegal migration, but treat the migrants as people.

Helena Dalli (MLP) regretted that there had been no mention of the hardship being suffered by soldiers and policemen who were in personal, constant contact with the problem of illegal migration.

These personnel were being asked to work on long shifts on tasks which were not within their core duties. It was a situation which was eroding morale and distracting the services from their proper roles.

There were even signs of psychological stress among some members of the AFM and the police deployed to watch over the migrants.

Mrs Dalli insisted that she did not mean to say that the illegal immigrants' problems and concerns should not be addressed, but who was listening to the problems of the Maltese personnel who were taking their problems home?

Mrs Dalli wondered how the Commissioner for Refugees and the members of the Appeals Board were still part-timers, despite the influx of migrants Malta had experienced.

And how was it that the government had not reached the sort of repatriation agreement with Libya which Italy had reached? Was it a question of lack of leadership or political clout? Was Malta being forceful enough?

Mrs Dalli said illegal immigration could not be tackled without considering the criminal aspects of human trafficking. This was now an £8 billion industry that was a serious competitor to drug trafficking. Yet the penalties for human trafficking were still low when compared to those for drug trafficking.

Illegal immigration was not exclusively seaborne. Women from the former Soviet Union were being lured to the EU, and specifically to Malta, on the pretext of employment in the catering or other industries and they were then forced to prostitute themselves. Yet if there were no demands for such services, there would no longer be suppliers.

The same argument extended to those employers who employed migrants illegally and went on to exploit them. Why was law enforcement so weak when, at the same time, single mothers were hunted down and denied social services for working as maids? It was so easy to be strong with the weak. Anybody with open eyes could see minibus-loads of overworked, underpaid foreign workers while Maltese family men were kept out of jobs.

Mrs Dalli asked why the authorities were so reluctant to get to grips with this part of the problem. Was Malta small enough to be swamped by these problems, but not small enough to know about the illegalities going on?

Winding up the debate, Parliamentary Secretary Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici said there was basically agreement on how this human tragedy was being treated. There was also agreement that one should, first and foremost, consider one's duties as a Christian. One had a duty to help the persecuted.

Malta was known for its hospitality, but it could not tolerate abuse of this characteristic. This Bill was therefore aimed at those who abusively sought refugee status when they were manifestly not entitled to such assistance. One had always to distinguish between refugees and economic migrants. In terms of this bill, action could be taken more quickly against those who were not genuine refugees and those who did not cooperate with the authorities - such as when they did not reveal their real names and nationalities.

This bill did not amount to automatic repatriation, because a refugee commissioner still had to consider all applications before declaring any of them as being unfounded, when that was the case.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici said the EU was giving assistance to Malta which it would not have provided had Malta not been a member. EU Commissioner Franco Frattini had also come to Malta to see what the problem was, and it was therefore wrong to say that the EU was ignoring Malta. Malta was, however, insisting that the EU needed to address this problem with more urgency.

On Libya, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said that whatever agreement was reached, automatic repatriation should not be considered. Whoever came here had to be screened to ensure that the genuine refugees did not suffer.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici also referred to the remarks made on prostitution, pointing out that this Bill laid down new penalties for those convicted of having brought over migrants for prostitution purposes.

The bill was then given a second reading by agreement.