Only three proposals from the ‘Femifesto’ published last year have been tackled, the Malta Women’s Lobby said in a press conference on Tuesday.

The lobby is made up of 14 organisations who work in favour of women’s rights and equality.

The Femifesto consisted of 30 proposals aimed at narrowing gender inequalities, and was published shortly before the last general election.

The theree proposals tackled were “to introduce murder ‘with femicidal intent’ which allows the judges to consider the highest form of punishment whilst removing the argument of ‘crime of passion’ as a defence in such cases, which came into force last June; an increase in paternity leave from one to ten days; and the launch of a Gender Equality and Gender Mainstreaming Strategy and Action Plan catering for between 2022 and 2027.

Present for the press conference were University of Malta Senior Associate Academic Louiselle Vassallo, UM Associate Professor Marceline Naudi and UM Senior Lecturer and former Director of the Centre for Labour Studies Anna Borg.

These proposals were sent to all political parties and, following the elections, they were also presented to the then newly appointed Parliamentary Secretary responsible for Reforms and Equality Rebecca Buttigieg.

Referring to Bernice Cassar’s murder last November, Naudi said that the country still has a major issue concerning domestic violence cases. She went on to say that since the Femifesto has been put out, that rather than moving forward “I dare say we have gone backwards.”

She spoke of how Cassar was also issued a protection order, followed by a police report upon its breach “however she was still killed.”

In total proposals have been put forward in three categories; violence against women, women in media and work-related issues.

On work-related media, Vassallo explained how there should be more representation of women in the media especially in “male-dominated subjects.” She added that more people “not only those working in the media” should receive more training on media literacy.

On the paternity leave initiative, which was increased to ten days instead of the previous one day and paid at €23 per day, it was said that in order to “truly cut the caring gaps” then the sum paid out should increase because no family is going to live on that amount.

In reaction to the lack of proposals tackled by the government, the lobby said that it feels ignored, noting that it is useless to conduct these reviews without the issues being tackled.