Stateless children living in Malta should be granted “some form of regular status” to uphold their “fundamental right to a family life”, the children’s commissioner has urged.

In a reply to Times of Malta questions, a spokesperson for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner said there are migrant children who are stateless or risk becoming stateless and the office continues to advocate for their rights and voice its concern about the issue with the authorities.

“Children who are born here [in Malta], irrespective of their status, only know Malta as their home and, therefore, we believe that it is in the best interest of these migrant children for the status of the entire family unit to be regularised since this safeguards the children’s fundamental right to a family life,” the spokesperson said.

“This regularisation should not be limited to those children who are born in Malta but equally to those migrant children who were born in other countries but who have settled and integrated here whether or not they enjoy international protection.”

The children’s commissioner is appointed to uphold the rights and freedoms of all children living in Malta.

The current commissioner – former Ta’ Xbiex mayor and former Housing Authority chairperson Antoinette Vassallo – was appointed in 2022 and her pleas for the recognition of stateless children join those of many migrants’ rights activists, who, over the past months, have been pushing on the authorities to give more rights to migrants who were denied asylum.

How do children become stateless?

Most migrants who are denied asylum are allowed to work in Malta and are obliged to pay tax and social contributions but have no access to free education. While working, they have access to healthcare but no social protection. 

This means that if they are injured, taken ill or can no longer be gainfully employed, they will not receive any social, medical or unemployment benefits. They are similarly not entitled to a pension once they reach retirement age.

Children born here only know Malta as their home

They are also not allowed to marry, even if they enter loving relationships and form a family of their own.

Moreover, children born in Malta to parents who have been rejected asylum inherit their parents’ lack of documentation, have no social protection and are technically stateless.

According to recent data, there are at least 171 stateless people in Malta, almost half of them aged under nine.

Some of these families have been living and working in Malta for as long as 20 years and they live in Maltese villages, their children go to school there, play an instrument with the local band club and help with the village feast or have joined the local sports nursery – yet, they are still not considered Maltese, they cannot represent Malta in a sports or artistic discipline and are frustrated for being continually referred to as ‘migrants’ or ‘aliens’.

‘A more definite and permanent status’

The Office of the Children’s Commissioner said that, on various occasions, it advocated publicly for the rights of migrant children through statements and its annual reports  and “also brought it concerns to the attention of the relevant entities”.

“The Office believes that migrants who have settled in Malta and integrated in Maltese society should be given a more definite and permanent status even if they do not qualify for any form of international protection,” the commissioner’s spokesperson said.

“If irregular migrants are not repatriated within a short period of time from their irregular entry into Malta, migrants and their families should be given some form of regular status that would legitimise their long-term stay in Malta, therefore enabling children to access their rights including their right to education among many others.”

The issue of undocumented migrants resurfaced last February after Kusi Dismark – a man who had lived, studied and worked in Malta for 13 years – was forced to leave the country or be deported and his was not the only such case.