This summer seems to have stimulated our junior minister for equality, Rosianne Cutajar.  She is taking action on an array of laws.

She is feeding the media with spicy issues intended to distract attention from the controversial aspects of these laws. At the same time, she is angling, almost desperately, for controversy. Perhaps something which will make us focus less on what is coming out of the testimony being heard in the courts.

Is Rosianne Cutajar fishing or feeding? Or is it a bit of both? And why would she be doing this? Why now?

Two weeks ago, in this space, I cleared the air on the Equality Law. Since then I have learned that though the government intends to summon the Parliamentary Committee which discusses new laws in the coming days, the government has not bothered to forward the latest amendments to the Equality law to the concerned stakeholders.

To date, NGOs and representatives of sectors of our society who may agree with, or object to, the latest amendments put forward by Government to the Equality law (Bill 96) are not aware that there are changes once again.

Some suggestions have been taken on board while others have been ignored. How can civil society participate in a debate when it does not have this information in hand?

Of course, the Equality Law, at face value, is not controversial enough to distract people as much as Cutajar needs. This is why she has since fed us other red herrings like prostitution and cannabis.

Once again, Cutajar opted to pass on this information to the media without issuing an official press release through the Department of Information. This indicates that her position and opinion on these matters may not be the official one.

Let’s take the position on prostitution. The proposed reform was originally in the hands of Julia Farrugia, who was Parliamentary Secretary at the Office of the Prime Minister back in 2019, when the Prime Minister was Joseph Muscat.

In reaction to the consultation process on the prostitution reform, a group of experts, academics, NGOs and women’s organisations (40 in total), came together as the Coalition on Human Trafficking and Prostitution. They presented a strong document explaining their well-researched position.

The document is called “Reform on Human Trafficking and Prostitution - Joint Submission to Government Public Consultation Process October 2019”. It was presented to Cutajar (as part of the Social Affairs Committee) and explained in detail during a set of meetings on the subject.

The main key points from this document are: (a) decriminalisation of those who are prostituted, (b) making buying sex a criminal offence and (c) offering exit services for those in prostitution. This includes help and support on legal, health, financial, educational and social services among others.

Instead, by introducing decriminalisation only, without the safeguards — as the government proposes — Malta will become a sex tourism hub. Demand for prostitutes will go through the ceiling and human trafficking will become the norm.

I remember very clearly Cutajar’s promise to take all these points into consideration when making the important decisions to reform prostitution. Looks like she considered all this to be useless.

For instance, when setting up the Prostitution Reform Technical Committee, Rosianne Cutajar could have at least included one expert from those who had meticulously done their research and presented such detailed findings.

Instead, she chose to take advice from those who would tell her exactly what she wanted to hear.

I am purposely refusing to call prostitutes “sex workers”. I refuse to sugar-coat the reality of these women (and a minority of men).

They are not the leading character in “Pretty Woman” as some may think is the case.

No handsome, wealthy man is going to save them from the slavery they are in.

In Malta, only 1% of prostitutes are their own bosses. The rest are owned, used and abused by pimps who hook them onto alcohol and drugs to make them forget what they really have to face in their daily life.

This reform is a make or break for our country. We don’t need to try this or that to know the outcome.

There have been countries that opted for decriminalisation only —  the option Cutajar is pushing — and they would do anything to reverse the disaster they created in their own society.

Germany (known as the bordello of Europe) has an estimated 400,000 prostituted women. Spain has become the third largest centre for prostitution in the world after Thailand and Puerto Rico. New Zealand has legalized pimps forcing women into unwanted sexual practices.

Is this what we want for our country?

We cannot allow our government to take decisions based on fake consultation. The Coalition on Human Trafficking and Prostitution is being ignored.

We cannot be complacent about this. Women in prostitution deserve to be heard. They have found a voice in the Coalition which is now being stifled and ignored. We must speak up for the most vulnerable and not for the privileged few.