A case heard in court this week unfolded quite bizarrely. A man, in his 50s, was charged with defiling a minor. Investigators testified that the man had asked the barmaid for help to operate a cigarette vending machine. This turned out to be in another room and as she led him inside, he allegedly groped her. The court was also told that there were no witnesses because the alleged offence took place in a room that was separate to the bar area.

The defence and prosecution were immediately locked in discussion about bans on the publication of the name of the accused, with the defence saying that many accusations had been made of late with names being bandied about capriciously.

But while all this was going on, no one seemed to notice the elephant in the room. What was a teenager – aged 15 – doing selling alcohol behind a bar? In fact, what was a 15-year-old doing on a payroll? Is this not illegal?

The issue here has nothing to do with whether someone groped her or not. That is besides the point, it is legally and morally wrong to touch any person of the opposite sex without permission, even more wrong to touch a minor. But that is by the by, the court will rule and act accordingly once it has heard the case.

But back to the questions we asked earlier. What is happening to our society? Over the past decades, Malta has undergone a massive shift. We have become more European in nature, culture and behaviour.

But something seems to be amiss. On the surface, we apply laws that sometimes defy belief. The instance of a woman being hauled to court for dancing at a religious procession being one of them. The double standards we apply beggar belief. Sunday morning “marches” are the sheer embodiment of debauchery, with drunken, lewd behaviour (often supplemented by drug use) the order of the day. Is anyone arrested? No, of course not – that’s tradition and culture, and as a result, we let it slip by. The worrying thing is that on such occasions, such behaviour is considered to be normal. And in similar fashion, the fact that a 15year-old girl is working behind a bar – and showing patrons how to use a cigarette machine – is also considered normal. The whole situation is riddled with so many wrongs that one does not even know where to begin. And just like these cases, there are many others, and Maltese society just turns the other way. To put it into perspective, we are shocked when a woman in a bikini crashes a religious procession. But we then found it normal to celebrate that saint by having an alcohol and drug-fuelled party the next day. We punish establishment owners for allowing 17-year-olds into their premises – then we think nothing of a 15-year-old selling alcohol behind a bar and showing people how to use cigarette machines. Something, in the very fabric of our society, is wrong.