The story that hit the headlines over the past few days is the fruit of successive governments ignoring the plight of people who were victims of human trafficking, working in a sweatshop right under everyone's nose.

Each and every government that has been in power - and those who headed them, or still head them - should hang their heads in shame. This is gross and terrible abuse of people who came to Malta thinking they would be heading for a better life. What they got was slavery and their rights totally violated and breached under every possible law and convention and charter that is possibly imaginable.

We too, as a people, should have known this was happening. It has been happening for nigh on 30 years. There is no doubt that it is happening. This newspaper has followed up reports in Medialink's platforms and drawn the same conclusion.

All of a sudden, everyone has come out to condemn the fact that this was allowed to happen in Malta. But this does not only boil down to inhumane slavery. There are many factors at play. First of all, the company in question has trafficked people into Malta to perform jobs which do not need particular skills. This is in violation of Maltese law. Second, they are the victims of extortion. Third, the company is manufacturing garments here, with slave labour, simply to be labelled as made in the EU. Fourth, we have people who must have taken kickbacks and bribes at many points over the years to allow the operation to continue unhindered. It is highly unlikely that in almost 30 years, no inspection or investigation turned up any irregularities. Fifth, politicians were, and still are aware, that this was going on.

Politicians and indeed Ministers from both the PN and the PL knew that this was going on. Of course, now that the lid has been blown, everyone is contrite. An inquiry should be launched right now to establish who knew about this, and for how long. One can only but assume that a board of enquiry would have to probe almost all Malta's law enforcement and employment agencies, trade permit boards and so on and so forth... all the way up to the top of the political sphere. It is easy to see what the findings would be - we would have all failed collectively. This is not like Italy, where people are herded off into the countryside to work in barrack like factories. This is Malta, where the same bus left every day for the past goodness only knows how long. The workers barracked next to the ETC and people saw them every single day. This is gross abuse and something which we should all hang our collective heads in shame for.