We often discuss immigrants from Africa as though we know enough about what they have been through. That we don’t really need to learn more from them other than their country of origin. That we don’t really need to hear their individual voices other than the bare details necessary to decide if they qualify for humanitarian protection.

I must admit my thinking has often drifted in this direction. Last week I had the opportunity to find out how wrong I was.

It was an experience that was moving, searing and transformative. It has marked me fundamentally for life – as a woman not just as a politician.

I attended the Global Summit called “End Sexual Violence In Conflict”. It took place in London, a summit with 120 countries represented. The US was represented by the Secretary of State, John F. Kerry. Well over 1,000 experts, including survivors of this atrocity, took an active role. The event’s hashtag is #Time to Act.

The focus was on how rape is used as a weapon of war. The workshops discussed, among other issues, the professional documentation and investigation of sexual violence, action on protecting women and girls in emergencies, and practical measures to support human rights organizations.

I learnt about the stigma and, consequently, the silence that survivors have to live with, the dangers of speaking up and the risks taken daily by human rights defenders. This was no discussion about the past. It concerned the horrifying present. It is not just militias and rebel groups that are perpetrators. Government security forces use this brutal weapon too.

The perpetrators almost never face justice. Such was the case with Bosnia Herzegovina some 20 years ago, as well as Uganda, Somalia, Congo, Colombia, and, lately, Syria and Iraq.

It may all sound remote from Malta. It’s not. Some of our African immigrants are escaping from the hell of such situations.

It is vital that our authorities become more alert to the possibility that some of the African arrivals, men as well as women and children, may be survivors of sexual violence. It is not just a matter of human decency, a matter of helping victims deal with inner turmoil, of helping them give a voice to their pain so that it can be addressed.

It’s also a matter of good administration. In our detention and open centres, the task of keeping good order will be that much more difficult if we do not meet the medical and psychological needs of such victims.

It is important to note that the summit also offered valuable opportunities for countries like Malta to acquire the financial and expert resources to handle such matters. The US, for example, has offered to increase its international aid.

However, whether the Maltese government did, in fact, take advantage of the opportunities is not clear from the press release issued by Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I think we should be told.

Following up

Last week, I wrote about the importance of watchdogs for democracies – the organizations and institutions of civil society, like the media and NGOs, who can keep all politicians, Government and Opposition, in check. It is especially important during the summer slumber, the season when politics tends to disappear off the radar. However, even though unnoticed, it still goes on.

It’s essential that things get noticed in the first place. But if there is no follow-up on the initial observation, then the news might as well not have been reported.

Take the recent Xemxija story. It transpired that the country was providing round-the-clock heavy security to a person unknown, living in a Xemxija apartment. The government spokesman declared that no information could be given as the matter was one of national security. Not one of security for the person concerned, mind you, but one of security for the country.

It was a good thing that the news surfaced, first on Daphne Caruana Galizia’s blog and later in the outlets of other media organizations. The unknown person has since moved elsewhere. But where?

There has been no follow-up in the media. Without follow-up, stories of public interest will die a natural death. All the valuable professional work would have been in vain.

Politicians often bank on not getting caught. Then they bank on there not being any follow-up. This government, it seems to me, has turned the exploitation of a lack of follow-up into an art form.

Claudette Buttigieg MP – [email protected], twitter: @ButClaudette