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Michaela Muscat
Sonia Camilleri, the Commissioner for Children, has told MaltaToday the increase in single mothers by 60 per cent in the last four years is “not a priority” for her, saying she was not aware of the statistics released in Parliament, since she had not received the statistics.
According to the latest data, the number of single mothers has been increasing exponentially over the past five years as a parliamentary question revealed that there were 704 births to unmarried mothers in 2004 – a stark contrast to the 429 births in 2000.
The Commissioner said she was of the opinion that the issue was not her prerogative. Pressed by this newspaper for the apparent nonchalance, Camilleri explained that since she was the Commissioner of Children she was only interested in “children who were having children.”
But University of Malta sociologist Josanne Cutajar claimed that the majority of single mothers are under the age of 20, which makes them “practically children”. Cutajar said that 71 per cent of unwed mothers were under 20 in 2002, according to the Demographic Review.
“I think we all agree that it is not a happy situation,” the chairperson of the National Family Commission, Angela Abela, said, pointing out research carried out by psychology graduates on the experiences of motherhood for pregnant unmarried teenagers.
“It appears that when these girls discover that they are pregnant, this is experienced as a big shock to them. It is indeed a challenging situation for them that in most of the circumstances would have evolved in a way they would not have aspired for.”
The ramifications of teenage pregnancy extend to their infants since they are more likely to be underweight at birth and other health, behavioural and developmental problems.
Babies born to teenage mothers are more likely to suffer abuse and neglect since the mothers are less knowledgeable about parenting skills and more likely to be frustrated by the infants continuous demands. Being a single mother, whether unwed, widowed or separated puts the woman and her infant at risk of poverty.
“Some are ostracised by family and friends, not all,” Josanne Cutajar said. “As to housing, unwed mothers tend to apply for social housing, separated mothers opt for rented accommodation. For the state to offer help for mothers to join labour market, we need more child care facilities which are subsidised. Or the implementation of tax rebates for those mothers who utilise child care facilities. Lifelong education is also important for these individuals to enable them to ameliorate their education and thus helps them get better jobs.”
The Poverty and Social Exclusion Report states that the majority of single mothers rent accommodation, which swallows up the larger part of the social benefits’ payment.
The state doesn’t offer adequate support to mothers, single or otherwise to join the labour market. But seeing as most single mothers would have no partners and could possibly be ostracised by family and friends, they would find it harder to cope with the pressures of workplace and the household.
Sociologist Angele Deguara who has expounded on the theory concerning the feminisation of poverty, states that the “secularisation phenomenon” leads to a more permissive society which makes it more acceptable for teenagers to experiment sexually.
Maltese society is more likely to accept single mothers and their children resulting in a more supportive familial network. “It is hard to discern the number of single mothers in the past decades,” said Cutajar. Hiding the unwed mother and shotgun marriages were common practice, making statistics misguiding at best.
Unfortunately the data available nowadays is mainly of the quantitative type, too vague to enable readers to explore the subject in more depth.
All the experts that were contacted observed that the data doesn’t specify whether single mothers are unwed, widowed, separated or indeed have chosen to cohabit rather than marry their partner.
With an MTV generation surrounded by images of sex, alcohol and drugs that invite them to abandon traditional values and embrace liberal cultures, experts see a recipe for disaster for the growing number of teenagers who lose inhibitions and are less likely to use contraception.
The family commission’s Angela Abela concurs with this theory. “Adolescents often feel stigmatised by their parents, teachers and doctors about being sexually active. They therefore hide their sexual activity from significant adults and go underground.”
The conservative forces in Malta insist on promoting abstinence in the face of ever-increasing number of people who are having premarital sex at a younger age.
Although abstinence is still an issue which needs to be discussed, young people need to learn about the different types of contraceptives and how to use them effectively, although schools still tend to skirt around the issue of contraceptives.
The increase of sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies prove that this approach is causing more harms than good.
“Parents in particular must be given the skills in order to communicate meaningfully with both their daughters and their sons especially with regards to relationships and sexuality,” Abela says.
michaelam@newsworksltd.com
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