Far too many people in positions of responsibility are choosing to focus the debate on Malta’s influx of irregular migrants and the perceived threat to national security rather than on the real issue at stake — that Malta’s very credibility on the global stage is at risk due to its treatment of people who are, for the most part, victims of several of the world’s greatest ongoing human tragedies.

Malta is consistently criticised not only for its automatic detention policy, which both sides of the political divide argue is necessary given the country’s particular circumstances, but also in terms of the actual conditions in detention centres. One would imagine that if the country is to justify its detention policy, it would at least provide for the basic elements of humane conditions for the people it detains.

Rather than stoking fears on national security and pandering to public opinion, fuelled as it is by a handful of misguided individuals, those in positions of responsibility need to take an introspective look at the country’s humanitarian obligations toward its migrant population.

It is undeniable that the record levels of irregular migrants landing on Maltese shores last year is a burden on the country, but so is the fact that Malta is failing in its duty to look after people who, for the most part, have quite literally been to hell and back.

Two cases in point are the parliamentary debate on migration and the press reportage on Médecins sans Frontières’ damning account of conditions prevailing in Malta’s detention centres.

This week’s parliamentary debate left an awful lot to be desired and fell far short of what was required of Malta’s political establishment. For starters, the debate’s tone was wrong from the outset, with the nauseating “illegal immigrant” phrase being bandied about incessantly, perhaps more by one side of the House than the other.

Any migrant landing on Malta’s shores, with or without travel papers, has a legal right to do so when seeking asylum. That is an undeniable fact, and a fact that the Opposition’s home affairs and security spokesperson, a lawyer by trade, appears to be painfully unaware of, if we are to give the individual the benefit of the doubt.

Also, it is an undeniable fact that the majority of migrants reaching Malta are from the troubled sub-Saharan Africa. The vast majority of these individuals request and are given humanitarian protection status because of a variety of conditions in their home countries. Others, such as North Africans who do not qualify for protection status, are repatriated as quickly as possible.

The fact that Parliament as a whole cannot gets its collective head around the fundamental issue is sadly symbolic of the tone of the national debate, which Parliament has a duty to foster and guide along the right path.

But instead of focusing on the real issues at stake, the debate dwelled excessively on facts that have already been well documented, such as ongoing political discussions in a number of related areas at EU level. At other times, some politicians clearly pandered to the mob mentality running its course through the public, and stoked the flames of fears over national security and the integrity of Maltese culture.

That the Opposition’s call for a debate was politically motivated is a certainty. The night Opposition leader Joseph Muscat called for a debate, he had first called for a government statement on a particularly sizeable landing of migrants that day. And when the Prime Minister said there was nothing warranting a particular statement about the arrivals, the government was accused of omertà.

The Opposition then demanded an immediate debate on the issue, which the government agreed to hold the following week. But had the government accepted the debate on the night in question, it would have found the Opposition unprepared for it.

A week later, the Opposition came to Parliament armed with its 20-point plan.

It was the Opposition home affairs and security spokesperson, who adopted a particularly scaremongering tone that night, who revealed the Opposition’s true motive for calling the debate when, during Tuesday sitting, he heralded Labour’s various leaps to the defence of the people.

First the party had defended the people on the issue of VAT on car registrations. Then, he said, it had brought the debate on the water and electricity tariffs to Parliament. Now it was the issue of ‘illegal immigration’.

The criticism of the Opposition’s tactics, however, does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination, that the government itself is handling the situation in the best possible way, as the conditions prevailing inside Malta’s detention centres are deplorable. The very term detention centres is a deceptive phrase. Prison camp is a more appropriate term for where asylum seekers, not criminals, are detained.

Furthermore, there is no excuse for the conditions highlighted by organisations that have been given access to the centres, which by all accounts are not suitable as dog pounds let alone for human beings.

Prisoners in Malta’s correctional facilities are given the proper and timely medication when ill, they are not sleeping in sewage, they have heat, window panes and clothing for the winter and they have access to sunlight – basic human rights sorely missing at the detention centres.

Last week’s findings by Médecins sans Frontières echo those produced last August by Médecins du Monde, and show that very little is being achieved to provide at least the basic reception conditions.

Both found that the living conditions in Malta’s open and detention centres contributed towards, and were many times responsible for, a host of physical and psychological ailments typical of people who were vulnerable, detained and lived in overcrowded conditions with unsatisfactory sanitation. Such ailments include a range of dermatological, respiratory and psychological afflictions – often brought on by living conditions at detention and open centres.

Why two of the country’s four daily newspapers chose to completely ignore the appalling points raised by MSF last week simply beggars belief. Both fell short of their responsibilities to their readers and as news outlets.

As sections of the media and politicians choose to skirt the issue of Malta’s treatment of its migrants, it is difficult to determine how, exactly, Malta is to be made to pull up its humanitarian socks, and address the long-standing and still prevailing deplorable situation.