I love portraits.  Photographic portraits are my preferred choice, because they are usually more true of the sitter than of the artist, but while photography is relatively young,   painting is as old as man and tells us as much of the painter as it does of the painted. Faces, expressions, postures, hairstyles, attire, details,  backgrounds,  project  the essence of humanity,  freezing entire moments in time while simultaneously eternalising it. 

Portraits invariably speak volumes without breaking their contractual silence. More important to me is the fact that their very existence enforces  the significance of individual human lives, taken alone, one by one and one at a time.

Not so long ago very few people could boast of owning  a portrait of themselves or their loved ones, deceased or living. This luxury depended on affordability or exceptionality, but today, most of us proudly carry our little portraits in our wallet in the form of ID cards or passports, which make us someone and separates us from the unaccounted for and stateless. We now seem to take it for granted, but if we stop for a moment to think about it, we refresh the understanding of its significance.

Maltese photographer Joe Smith's photographic depiction featuring a Birgu resident and her cat, is going to grace the walls of The National Portrait Gallery in the near future. Smith made it to the final shortlist of 60 images picked out of over 4000 entries submitted by no less than 1793 photographers ( as reported by The Malta Business Weekly of the 2nd October),  and no wonder.  

An image of a Maltese woman, of a particular generation, particular background, in  what seems to be   the  solid,  organised , clean and stable space she lived her life and raised the family.  The photo tells an interesting story  and raises many questions, but is an excellent snapshot into  what might be the existence of this  beautiful , aging, woman, whose gnarled hands are so tightly embracing the  object of love and care she still needs to give to feel alive.  

I emphasise the word might, because we all know that what we see is just a moment in the life of a woman, and most of the life of a Maltese woman of that generation remains  unknown and invisible to the outside world forever.

The following is another snapshot , this time not a photographic portrait but a verbal  portrayal of the home of another woman:

Home was my dad molesting me and my mom on coke. And my dad leaving and my mom's boyfriends molesting me and my mom on coke. Same trip. I used to get beat a lot when I was a kid. I had a lot of suicidal tendencies, if that's what you're looking for. Home was rough. Home was poor. My mom was bringing tricks home and stuff and shit and fucking up big time. I don't know...it was pretty rough so I went to the streets and then I started prostituting. I was eleven and a half when I started selling myself. That was rough. I got raped a couple of times. I got stitches in my pussy, 37 of them to be exact, with a knife. I hung myself when I was thirteen...I hung myself three times in a year. I don't know ... the rest was just junk [heroin]. I used to do heroin and cocaine a lot, but I quit because I overdosed too many times. '

The two encounters seem to be grossly different and they probably reflect a completely different reality for the women involved. But, I have to say that abuse exists within stable relationships and marriage, maybe, possibly even  as much as it  might exist in the life of a prostitute. The sense of worthlessness, of being used, of reverting to all sorts of medication to create the 'as if I'm not there experience' is rife whether sex is had for money or for  'love' , true or feigned. It is also true to say that walking out of an abusive relationship,  marriage or family can be as difficult and deadly as walking  out of a prostitution ring. The only difference being that the former  is considered domestic  more unprotected private domain, while the latter  rests in the public more accessible (if the will exists), domain.

The bottomline is that regulating prostitution in Malta can only help if licensing comes with  continuous motivation to opt for  realistic avenues for healing , physical and psychological  support for those prostitutes who are doing  the job  not out of choice but because they have been caught in the complex web of  criminality, poverty, lack of education to do other things .

Each prostitute , has to be treated  as  a whole individual, with a  particular past, a  specific present and a  possible alternative future and any discussion of the issue has to be made  with full respect to the sensitivity  of the  matter.

Then there are the clients, the people for whom prostitution exists and thrives, the exploitation of children and human trafficking, modern day slavery which is rife and horrible.....  What are we regularising exactly? And  where is all the regularisation going to stop? What if a prostitute registering for work refuses a job, do we axe her/ his benefits? Where is this madness taking us?