MEP Roberta Metsola said that unaccompanied children fleeing war and starvation need guardianship not prison guards.

“I am a proud Maltese Christian Democrat. I am also unashamedly a pro-life politician. I speak out for the unborn and I speak out also for children, fleeing hopelessness, war and famine in Syria. They do not deserve any less just because they were born elsewhere,” MEP Metsola said.

She made these remarks during a speech in the Parliament’s Plenary Session in Brussels focusing on the protection of unaccompanied migrant children. “Unaccompanied children need playpens not barbed wire, they need child rights’ protection officers, respect, books and access to education,” Roberta Metsola said.

Speaking on behalf of the EPP-Group, where she is the Coordinator within the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, Roberta Metsola reiterated that while all the necessary procedures must be in in place and any loopholes closed, European Union Member States have the legal obligation to protect children.

The Partit Nazzjonalista MEP said that “many of these children were put in a boat by their parents, who knew the risks and who did it anyway because a choice between fire and water - between certainty and some hope - is no choice at all. How we care for children is the litmus test of the strength of our European Way. We cannot allow people to manipulate the issue. The time of pandering to populists must end.”