Several dozen third country nationals who have been given one form of humanitarian protection or another by the Maltese authorities took to the streets of Valletta on Wednesday to voice their frustration over the fact that although they are working and paying taxes as productive members of society, they are not receiving the basic staples that the country’s welfare state provides.

It is, after all, inexcusable that people pay taxes and national insurance and are still being denied pro rata pensions, access to education and, perhaps worse still, many of their children born in Malta are not granted citizenship and remain in a perpetual state of statelessness.

The claims and/or legitimate gripes expressed by this group of people and so many others in the past must be looked into and addressed if this country, which sells citizenships to wealthy foreigners and at the same time denies the less privileged their basic legal and human rights, is to retain its humanitarian credentials.

Yesterday’s protest was by no means a one-off instance. These complaints have been made for years on end now and like-minded protests have been held in the past.  The problem, it seems has become endemic and racism has, in actual fact, become institutionalised in so many areas of this country.

Despite the fact that mass irregular migrant arrivals have been a thing of the past for years now, we as a nation appear to have still not come to grips with many of those who have found themselves calling Malta ‘home’.

These, in their vast majority, have found themselves settled here not out of personal choice but out of pure circumstance, and they have every legal right to live in this country and to have full access to and participation in all areas of society.

These areas include rights in employment, education, housing, health, access to goods and services, political participation, and the criminal justice system, but it is in these exact areas that racism and discrimination have become accepted as the norm and where they have, in fact, become institutionalised.

This sad situation was reported extensively some two years ago by the European Network against Discrimination in a study called ‘Racism and Related Discriminatory Practices in Malta’.  That report found that that racism and discrimination are still very much the norm in areas ranging from the employment and housing markets to the scholastic and health systems – areas that provide services considered as rights by this country and most of the Western world.  But while such services are fundamental rights for the Maltese, when it comes to the ‘less desirables’, it seems that there exists another weight and another measure.

Two years down the road, these situations appear to be very much unchanged and discrimination continues to be institutionalised.

But now that the irregular migration tidal wave has subsided into a mere ripple, if that, it is high time that Malta rises to the challenge of integrating into our communities those people who we have accepted to provide protection to, and to treat them with all the respect and humanity they are due as human.  Ignoring the problem and their plight will not make it go away.

There needs to be a collective effort as a country to stamp out discrimination, to remove those people in authority who have institutionalised discrimination, to send the message that this will no longer be tolerated and to focus on real integration. If we do not act fast, we will have certain groups of people becoming further marginalised and ghettoised, as is quickly becoming the case, rather than becoming productive members of their adoptive society, which, at the end of the day, serves all parties concerned.

But despite the fact that 11 whole years have passed since the onset of the irregular migration phenomenon in 2005, Maltese and migrants are clearly not integrating as well as they should be, according to the results of numerous surveys and reports.

All these confirm a void of integration as well as a still ever-present feeling of discrimination among the country’s resident refugees.  In fact, many migrants surveyed periodically say they had no or very little contact with Maltese people on any level whatsoever.

It is very concerning when there is a section of our society that is in most cases nameless, faceless non-entities as far as most people are concerned.  There are of course plenty of exceptions, but not anywhere near enough.

Again, there are several groups – governmental and non-governmental alike – that are doing sterling work along such lines but it is at the individual and community levels where that change must also take place, and take root.

It is high time that, as a country, we begin to collectively discriminate against discrimination in all its forms.