Integration policy to be launched this year

The government will launch an integration policy later this year, civil liberties minister Helena Dalli has confirmed.

“We’re currently conducting fieldwork on areas that some Maltese people believe have problems due to the fact that many immigrants are living there,” she told MaltaToday. “The policy will be published later this year.”

She was responding to questions from MaltaToday on whether the government has fallen short on introducing similarly inclusive policies for African migrants, as it had introduced for LGBTIQ+ people. She denied that this was the case, noting that an integration policy is still in the pipeline.

In a paper published in a sociology book last year, Dalli and her policy officer Silvan Agius admitted that Malta was unlikely to rise up the Migrant Integration Policy Index as it had risen to the top of ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Index.

In the paper, Dalli and Agius warned that “migrant integration is significantly more complex” to address and requires a “sustained information campaign to raise information campaign to raise awareness and knowledge about what integration means in practice”.

Moreover while LGBTIQ equality can be addressed primarily through legislative changes, migration requires “changes to the policies being implemented by different parts of government” which required more “interdepartmental coordination.”

Dalli and Agius are also cautious of more “governmental efforts” on integration as these will not necessarily result in more positive attitudes, citing the “harsh words and protests” on online comments board and the social media which met reports on the minister’s initiatives promoting integration.

One major stumbling block for integration is cultural: while many Maltese citizens have LGBTIQ relatives or friends whom they can relate to, “a significant portion of the population continues to have no direct contact with migrants” and less so within immediate circles – something confirmed by a MediaToday survey commissioned by the ministry in 2015 during the launch of the Mind D Gap information campaign.