Evarist Bartolo should stop being the superfluous amongst the elitist coalitions.
By Marica Micallef
Former minister Evarist Bartolo expressed gratitude to the people of Malta for not electing him in the general election of the previous year during an interview on the F Living Show.
“I have one of the best political records in Malta’s history, very few people contested eight elections and were elected on two districts in the first seven of them,” he said. How superfluous!
Is this the pathetic way how politicians measure their successful political records? Did the educational system improve under Bartolo’s watch? The policies a politician enacts, the projects a politician works on, and a politician’s votes in parliament are what really matter when it comes to political records and success; not the votes a politician received or the number of times a politician was elected.
Isn’t this the way opportunists talk? Is there some sort of wind of change blowing? Is Evarist joining who? Why is he being given more coverage by Lovin Malta through the Saħħa u Sliem footages?
Let us go back down memory lane, shall we? Shall we remind ourselves how he used to approve everything that is wrong, like the Gender Ideology, towing the party line while turning into a morning bathroom philosopher?
Back in 2016, Evarist Bartolo, the Minister for Education back then, in cahoots with the Minister for Family and Social Solidarity Helena Dalli, was presented a book called “Truly Willa” by an 8-year-old transgender child Willa Naylor. This was criticised by many others, including Pauline Miceli, the Children’s Commissioner, who had said “that it was potentially harmful for Willa to become a ‘symbol of the situation of transgender children.'”
The nation must also be repeatedly reminded, that the launch of the policy document entitled the “Trans, Gender Variant and Intersex Students in schools policy” was done back in 2015 by the education ministry headed by Evarist Bartolo himself!
And when in the same year, the LBTIQ Consultative Council imposed its agenda on the schools in 2015, with Gabi Calleja presenting the Education Ministry with 140 LGBTIQ books, Evarist Bartolo not even didn’t in any way stop it but had stated that the government was in favour of this measure as it is in line with its “education for all principle”.
“‘NGOs drive institutions towards the needs of civil society and we hope that this measure will become widespread across all public schools in time,’ Bartolo said.”
“‘Education should be such that it is as inclusive and diversified as possible,’ Bartolo added, explaining that the stories brought to the fore human emotions and situations which might be difficult for some to relate to.”[1]
He had also stated that the government would now work to ensure that LGBTIQ books were included on all library lists. But, after being severely criticised and condemned with a backlash from the parents at the time, who refused to have their four-year-olds to be LGBTIQ programmed, and who had read the press releases issued by the MGRM, Evarist Bartolo found himself constrained to issue a press statement through the government’s Department of Information, backtracking on the matter:
And then both Evarist and Gabi changed the tune. Għax jekk ma ngħaddux mill-bieb, ngħaddu mit-tieqa! So the government’s new tune became that the books “could be handed out to teachers and councillors” instead. To do what with them? Keep them nicely on a shelf? U ħalluna naqra! Titmejlu bil-poplu!
Evarist had said that in view of concerns raised by parents, rightly so, the books would not be distributed to children. BUT, a ministry spokesman had told the Times of Malta that the “books could still make their way into schools.”
“MGRM head Gabi Calleja said handing out the books to students was never really on the cards anyway.” Really? Fast forward to 2023, and without the parents’ consent and without any daqq tat-trombi on the press and tv, with no media reporting whatsoever, the LGBTIQA+ agenda is being imposed on our children. And while current Education Minister Clifton Grima bypassed parental consent and dictated to teachers to adhere to the LGBTIQA+ agenda, former Education Minister Evarist Bartolo had paved the way for this to happen.
[1] https://www.maltatoday.com.mt/news/national/55625/lgbtiq_books_to_be_handed_to_state_schools_#.ZA6sfXbMJPZ
We are allowing thousands to be treated like slaves – Evarist Bartolo Feature
SLAVERY IN MALTA > via hacked commercially researched projects >the corrupt Malta government staff/lawfirms/notaries using the NSO GROUP HACKWARE PEGASUS spyware and abusing the Malta Communications Authority equipment will continue abusing all communications as they have hacked/stolen 4 of my commercial projects, they have abused both my UK/MALTA passports even within the Panama/Paradise Papers >they stalked me on flights to NYC JFK, MIAMI, NASHVILLE, HAVANA CUBA, TURKEY, UK >they use the MLK-ULTRA to create so called ‘ALCHEMISTS ”SLAVES’ who are abused ex:Derren Brown hypnosis,but over long durations &who’s TRIGGER WORD/PHRASE is bartered globally between criminal network globally. Tel 00356 99689786
MARGARET COOPER
It’s time for trade unions to start protecting exploited migrant workers
Evarist Bartolo is a former Labour foreign and education minister.
Migrant workers and their families often experience marginalisation, xenophobia and poor living and working conditions.
Migrant workers and their families often experience marginalisation, xenophobia and poor living and working conditions. File Photo: Chris Sant Fournier
Last November, a number of people were brought over from India, Pakistan and Nepal to work in tourism. But, when they arrived, those who arranged for them to come informed them that there was no work after all as it was low season.
A few days later, they were told to go to Ta’ Xbiex and start setting up the Christmas Village. They worked for at least 10 hours a day. Some of them worked also in January to dismantle it. They still have not been paid.
Work permit delays can last months. This businessman has had enough
Day after day, they begged their employer to pay them, at least €3 an hour so they could pay their rent and buy some food. The local agent who brought them over threatened to report them to the police as illegal migrants and have them deported.
They had been promised that they would make good money in Malta, enough to be able to send some to their family. So they had borrowed money to come to Malta. They needed to pay that loan as well. After five months, they have still not been paid. They are now at the mercy of the local agents.
In its report for 2021, the US Department of State asserted that “Traffickers replace the original signed contract with a less favourable one upon migrants’ arrival in Malta or force victims to perform a completely different job to what was agreed upon…”
The report goes on to say that “Though illegal, traffickers often confiscate the passports of victims upon arrival…. [and] co-nationals of trafficking victims and Maltese citizens frequently work together to exploit victims”.
Seven years ago, local unions spoke out against the exploitation of these migrant workers. They promised to protect them but most of the thousands of migrant workers among us remain not unionised and completely vulnerable.
Unions should start protecting them, not only because they are people who deserve to be treated with dignity but also because the easy availability of cheap foreign labour in poorly paid sectors of the economy has started to undermine the rights and working conditions of Maltese workers as well.
Workers promised application ‘fast-track’ if they pay thousands
Migrant workers are made to pay thousands of euros (the sums of €8,000, €12,000 and even €20,000 are mentioned) to agents in their countries before being granted a visa to travel to Malta. It is then the turn of Maltese agents to exploit them further once they arrive here.They make them pay a commission of €300 monthly from their low pay. Some have even been forced to become sex workers in massage parlours even though they were lured to Malta with promises of a decent, well-paid job.
SLAVERY IS RAMPANT IN MALTA
We need workers from other countries as we have a very low birth rate and there are not enough Maltese to take the jobs we create every year. Our fertility rate is below the critical 2.1 threshold, which allows one generation to exactly replace itself. We are going through a demographic suicide but have never discussed the consequences and how we can avoid it.
At 1.1, Malta is one of the 10 countries in the world with the lowest fertility rate, so the need for foreign workers is not likely to change. But we need to make sure that there really is work for migrant workers and they are not simply a means for traffickers to make money.We are allowing thousands of workers from Asia, Latin America and Africa to be treated as slaves among us>Besides, we need to make sure that our social and economic development is sustainable and our country liveable. How many more people, buildings, cars, schools, hospitals and general infrastructure can we cater for without collapsing? How do we create a society where we integrate the foreigners without overwhelming the Maltese?In Malta, migrant workers and their families often experience marginalisation, xenophobia and poor living and working conditions.
The worst treated are reportedly those coming from Sub-Saharan Africa.They find it very difficult to rent a flat. In a village the same small flat is rented to a Maltese for €850 a month and an African for €1,800. The only way such an African migrant can afford the rent is to share with another five migrants and split living costs as best they can.
Like all migrant-receiving states in Western Europe, North America, Australia and Arab States of the Persian Gulf, Malta has not ratified the 20-year-old International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families.It provides guidance on national migration policies to ensure that minimum standards of human dignity are protected. The convention does not create new rights for migrants but aims at guaranteeing equality of treatment and the same working conditions for migrants and nationals.The convention proposes that action be taken to eradicate clandestine movements, notably through the fight against misleading information inciting people to migrate irregularly and through sanctions against traffickers and employers of undocumented migrants.We are allowing thousands of workers from Asia, Latin America and Africa to be treated as slaves among us. As Godfrey Wettinger reveals in his outstanding book Slavery in the Islands of Malta and Gozo 1000-1812, slavery was a prominent part of our economy in that period, slave labour was widely used in Malta and a thriving slave trade was operated from Malta throughout the Mediterranean.Status ‘human’ – two sides of migrationIn June 1798, after he took over Malta from the Order of St John, Napoleon Bonaparte decreed that “Slavery is abolished. All the slaves known as ‘bonavogli’ are set free and the contract they made, dishonourable to human-kind, is destroyed”.
Two hundred years later, slavery is back in the islands of Malta and Gozo. The state is doing all it can to stop human traffickers sending boat loads of migrants from Libya.
Yet, it is allowing human traffickers in Asia and Malta to play the system and operate a thriving slave trade on the backs of thousands of migrant workers arriving here by plane.