The women's lobby has turned on the government to find a solution for working parents whose children fall sick, as employers insist workers should not be allowed to use their sick leave to look after their young ones.
"When children are sick, what should parents do? Abandon them at home alone? Or send them to childcare even when they are sick," the Malta Women's Lobby asked on Friday.
Last month, the government launched a policy framework suggesting extending urgent family leave from 15 hours to 30 hours per year for people with children aged under four and allowing parents to use their sick leave allowance when their kids are unwell.
Current legislation binds employers to grant employees a minimum of 15 paid hours per year as time off for urgent family reasons.
These hours are deducted from the employee's annual leave entitlement.
But the Malta Employers Association said the 15-hour urgent leave allowance was intended to cater for such emergencies.
It added that such a sick leave system would be “impossible to control” and unlikely to be well managed by doctors who have been shown to abuse of sickness certificates.
While "noting" the MEA's objection and concerns, the women’s lobby demanded solutions from the government.
In practice, the mere 15 hours currently allowed by law means that if a child is sick for four days in January, two parents would run out of such leave between them for the rest of the year, the lobby said.
"We regret to note that successive governments in Malta have adopted an unrealistic, penny-pinching and insensitive approach to granting decent and adequate family-related leave for working parents in the private sector.
"Compared to other EU countries, the 15 hours a year of urgent family leave granted in Malta are, at best, laughable and, at worst, dismal."
The lobby said urgent family in Sweden leave can stretch up to 120 days (with the government picking up 80% of the cost), in Poland 60 days, and in Portugal 30 days.
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"The difference could not be starker - which is also why it is hardly surprising that Malta is experiencing the lowest birth rate in the EU," the lobby said in a statement.
"The government needs to do away with delaying tactics and should commit to realistic and emphatic family leave for working parents, by offering pragmatic and workable solutions to parents who are caring for sick children."
The lobby added that such measures need to be extended to families who care for sick relatives.
Urgent family leave, it said, needed to be defined for what it truly represented.
"Half-measures - like the ones proposed - to double the urgent family leave to 30 hours per year, are unrealistic and disrespectful, and will not work. They are simply insufficient and defy all logic. The government needs to find evidence-based solutions that work for employers and employees."