Really and truly, newly elected Member of European Parliament Claudette Abela Baldacchino yesterday chose the only avenue open to her by declaring that she would renounce the immunity from prosecution that is automatically bestowed upon MEPs when taking office.

For her to do anything else would have been unfathomable and unacceptable given the fact that she stands accused of defrauding the European Union itself. Mrs Abela Baldacchino is, of course, innocent until proven guilty, has every right to defend herself and to clear her name and it is certainly hoped that she will be cleared of the charges she is facing.

But given the amount of controversy that arose in the wake of her election, one does wonder why it had taken so long for her to state, as she did yesterday, that she never even thought about seeking immunity and that she will renounce it.

It is also questionable why her party allowed her to run in the casual election in the first place, when it had prevented her from running in the local council election because of the charges she is facing.

But the issue is still a source of embarrassment for the government, and once the request to lift the immunity is made, the European Parliament will still have one of its members facing charges of defrauding the EU.

On a related note, it was extremely positive that Malta has now gone from a zero to 50 in terms of the percentage of its female representation in the European Parliament with her election and the election of Marlene Mizzi and Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas, a small but significant step forward for the country’s bid to address its multiple gender gaps.

Violence

Hats off to the Girl Guides for having voiced, en masse, their opposition to violence in relationships last week in what was perhaps the largest demonstration the country has seen against domestic violence. It was also a poignant one, for what could drive the message home any better than those young girls marching against violence in relationships that most of them are still to enter into?

So many women still suffer in silence every day, trapped in a way of life that demeans their very existence, those women who yearn not for a boardroom position but to merely be in a position in which abuse in all its heinous forms – physical, psychological and emotional – is no longer the order of the day.

Sadly, there are so many voiceless women who simply settle for such treatment because they do not know any different, they resign themselves to their fate because they have seen such behaviour handed down from generation to generation. But this generation, with the heightened awareness that this day and age provides, must be the generation in which this is all brought to an abrupt end and last Saturday week’s demonstration gives hope that the scourge that is domestic violence will no longer be mutely accepted or have a blind eye turned to it.

Recent research has revealed that at least one in four Maltese women have experienced violence at least once in their lives, and that at least half of those have suffered sustained abuse. And despite recent awareness-raising efforts, many women in such seemingly hopeless positions do not know that help, in the form of Agenzija Appogg and its 179 helpline, is out there and that all they have to do is pick up the phone and ask for it.

Unions

It was also encouraging this week to hear Civil Liberties Minister Helena Dalli confirm that the government is wasting no time in making good on its pre-electoral pledge to introduce civil unions for same-sex couples.

In fact, it was confirmed on Monday that the government is to move a bill on the issue before the summer recess, meaning that this often discriminated segment of the population will, at long last, soon see the introduction of this civil right that has been absent from the country’s statute books for too long now.

While not the on the level of same-sex marriage that was recently introduced in France and New Zealand, the civil unions being proposed are just one step shy of same-sex marriage, and several steps ahead of the Cohabitation Bill produced in the last legislature. But of course, just how avant-garde the legislation being contemplated is remains to be seen.

Without same-sex marriage, a growing number of European countries have introduced civil unions as a way of giving homosexual couples the same rights and status accorded to married couples, and Malta is now on the verge of following suit.  In actual fact, 10 European countries and close to two dozen countries around the world have to date introduced civil marriage.

And while the contents of the bill introducing civil unions to be tabled in Malta’s Parliament are not yet known, it will be interesting to see if the draft bill proposes the possibility of adoption by same-sex couples in civil unions, as is the case in most countries that have civil unions and same-sex marriage. That is a very real possibility given that the Prime Minister has in the past expressed his support for such a move.

In all, 24 countries have civil unions for same-sex couples, and 14 now have same sex marriage. But, on the other hand, same-sex conduct is illegal in 76 countries and is even punishable by death in five – Iran, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Yemen.

Within this growing Western tide of liberalism and civil rights it is at once refreshing and encouraging to see that Malta will soon be at the vanguard in terms of gay rights rather than bringing up the rear as it has on so many other issues.