Women's rights issues have taken a step 'backwards', says PN MEP candidate

The “socialist government” has taken women's issues "backwards", Nationalist Party MEP candidate Roselyn Borg Knight said.

Speaking at the PN HQ as part of the European election campaign, Borg Knight said figures showed that the government had failed women in society.

She pointed to statistics released by Eurostat and the World Economic Forum, depicting a bleak picture of the situation of Maltese women in employment.

Borg Knigh said PN MEPs would be working on action plans to help women find their place at every level of society and work together to create equal gender opportunities.

She said PN MEP David Casa had already worked on European legislation to increase equality between men and women through the work-life balance directive, which will give men 10 paid paternity leave, among others.

PN MP Claudette Buttigieg said it was shocking that Malta still has such a significant gender wage gap. Buttigieg quoted a study carried out by the Malta Institute of Accountants and MISCO, a reseacrh company, entitled 'Gender Pay Gap Study in the Accountancy Profession' published last March, which found that there was a 20% pay gap between men and women working in the field for more than 10 years.

Buttigieg said the situation of women in the labour force in Malta was unacceptable and needed to be addressed while insisting that the government did not care about the condition of women. "I am not saying it was good before, but the situation has been aggravated for women," she added.

Buttigieg accused the government of failing to address the issue; she said that unlike the present administration the previous government had understood what an important issue the gender wage gap is and had made strides in trying to remedy the situation.