A prostitute was forced to work even while pregnant and shortly after giving birth, working non-stop from 8am to 5pm and throughout the night, Opposition MP Claudette Buttigieg told Parliament on Wednesday.
Cautioning the government against the relaxation of legislation prohibiting prostitution, she said that the prostitute had borne two of her pimp’s children, who made her keep her phone switched on while she attended to clients, so that he could hear what she was saying and doing.
Ms Buttigieg said the woman had said: “My water broke when I was with a client. I phoned my pimp, but he wouldn’t take me to hospital.”
She likened these conditions to those of chained dogs, which had been given protection by the government, and questioned how this state of affairs could persist in Malta.
Ms Buttigieg intervened during a debate on amendments to the law on domestic and gender-based violence which resulted from the Istanbul Convention last year. The amendments are being moved by Equality Minister Helena Dalli.
The amendments would increase the fines which could be levied on perpetrators and prohibit the filming of sexual acts without the consent of the person being filmed, among other changes. They would also allow for the gradual payment of damages, in order to allow the victim to receive compensation without financially crippling the perpetrator.
Ms Buttigieg made reference to Germany where brothels were “as large as supermarkets” and clients had a “menu” of services to choose from. Germany had 400,000 legal sex workers who serviced over a million clients every day, and many of these sex workers were treated “no better than animals”.
The vast majority of women in prostitution were groomed from as tender an age as 12 or 13, and many started engaging in sex work before they were 18. Most prostitutes came from dysfunctional families, and were targeted by pimps and groomed by family members, boyfriends, or pseudo work agents.
The Opposition would be voting in favour of the amendments, she said, but lamented that domestic and gender-based violence laws were failing to be put into practice due to reasons which had to do with the composition of Maltese society.
The media was failing to draw sufficient attention to the fact that domestic violence was not just “women’s problem” but a social problem which was undermining Maltese society.
Ms Buttigieg referred to a recent interview with lawyer and activist Lara Dimitrijevic, which had shown that reports of domestic violence had increased, and that women continued to be the most affected. Victims were told not to file reports because these would ultimately backfire on them, Dr Dimitrijevic had said, as she recounted one particular case where a victim was scolded by the police for “exaggerating”.
This showed that, in spite of a law passed in 2018, the police were not sufficiently prepared to deal with issues of domestic violence.
It did not help that it took so long to bring perpetrators to justice, intensifying the victimisation of those who were already suffering.
Other Opposition MPs discussed various aspects of the amendments. Opposition MP Kevin Cutajar addressed the phenomenon of revenge pornography, arguing that it could not be addressed simply through legislation but that there was a need to provide training and appropriate technology to police working to combat such crimes.
Dr Cutajar and Opposition MP Therese Comodini Cachia both questioned the decision to separate the stages of assessment and investigation in response to allegations of domestic or gender-based violence.
Dr Cutajar and Dr Comodini Cachia both questioned whether adding a person with disability to the Gender-Based Violence and Domestic Violence Commission would have practical results, or whether this representative would simply be a token figure. The requirement that those suffering from disability be represented on the Commission should be accompanied with the proper support for the representative in question.
Opposition MP Edwin Vassallo objected to an amendment which defined gender as “the socially constructed roles, expectations, activities, behaviours and attributes that society at any given time associates with a person of any sex, assuming any form of gender identity or gender expression." This represented a departure from a natural understanding of gender, he said, allowing the state to determine and define the meaning of gender.
The government should respect the natural difference between the sexes, he said. The logic which it was currently adopting was destroying what used to be known as the “family,” which was no longer defined in legislation as the union of man and woman. To this extent, the “genderist” law which was before the House was itself carrying out a form of sexual abuse.