Malta’s Coalition on Human Trafficking and Prostitution Reform called on Minister Owen Bonnici to change the police on prostitution adopted by his predecessor Rosianne Cutajar.
Bonnici took over the responsibility for the nation’s reforms and equality after Cutajar was found to be in breach of ethics.
This significant addition to Bonnici’s portfolio provides the timely opportunity to reflect on the government’s position on related issues, including its intention to fully decriminalise prostitution and sex buying in Malta, the coalition said. The government’s position, spearheaded by former Parliamentary Secretary Rosianne Cutajar, was ill-informed of the human, societal and economic costs of the proposal to legalise sex-buying.
It fails to acknowledge, much less address, the many perverse and damaging consequences that this course inevitably steers us towards. The proposal for example, fails to acknowledge the inextricable link between legalised prostitution and human trafficking. Local johns aside, even if only 10% of our 2.5 million tourists came for sex, where would the women and girls come from to service them?
As most Maltese women and girls will not, thousands upon thousands of women and girls will be trafficked to meet the demand. Despite demonstrably strengthening the resolve and capacity to combat trafficking, the US State Department’s 2021 Trafficking in Persons Report finds Malta still failing to achieve minimum standards for its elimination. The Report highlights inadequacies in our capacity to identify victims, coordinate between ministries, enforce labour recruitment regulations and monitor massage parlour where there was a higher incidence of trafficking indicators. Accepting the inevitability of increased trafficking as a result of the Government’s current proposal, these existing difficulties will be exacerbated. Malta will slide deeper into failing to meet minimum standards with more disenfranchising consequences for us all. The current proposal is replete with dysfunction and dystopian realities.
For example, maintaining the prohibition against brothels begs the question, where will prostitutes loiter and solicit (both of which will be legal)? Presumably, as in other countries, it will happen outside our homes, schools, hotels, restaurants and bars. And where will they have sex? In hotel rooms and apartments across the islands? How will we protect women and girls from being exposed and drawn into this glitterstudded trade of abuse and exploitation? And, how can we possibly hope to protect our reputation as a safe and culturally rich destination for tourists and students? We cannot afford to slip further beneath international standards.
With our FATF grey listing, we must also improve our capacity to investigate and prosecute money laundering and tax evasion. The global sex trade is worth around €1 billion annually. Controlled by international gangs and networks of pimps and traffickers, there are significant vested interests in maintaining and expanding the trade, equipped with top shelf expertise in circumnavigating the state to launder ill-gotten gains. Creating a veil of legality is the enabling environment for pimps and traffickers to hide illicit profits. When we are already failing to investigate and prosecute money laundering and tax evasion crimes to requisite international standards – why would we make the problem worse and more difficult for ourselves? Cutajar’s position was informed by a Technical Committee lacking the technical and field expertise in the human, social and economic realities of these challenging and complex issues. It has excluded the wisdom and experience of multidisciplinary experts, including any of our Coalition’s 46 member organisations representing all of Malta’s leading experts and many of Europe’s.
"We urge Bonnici to work on a reform that translates into a law that does not criminalise victims of the sex industry but removes the exploitative and abusive power and control of johns, pimps and traffickers whilst ensuring that trafficking does not expand. To do so, we also urge Bonnici to revisit the constitution of his Technical Committee, appointing the range and depth of expertise required to provide the comprehensive advice required to produce a law that will protect our people, society, economy and reputation."