Malta is an island country located in the central Mediterranean Sea, directly south of Sicily, and north of Libya. The small island country has just over half a million inhabitants, with the biggest minority being disabled people. Rhoda Garland moved to Malta about 20 years ago and is now the first Commissioner for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities appointed by parliament.
The old and the new Malta
When Rhoda Garland moved to Malta in 2006, the island had not yet ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD). She observed, “In Malta, it’s a very different culture, and changing culture always takes a certain amount of time.” For many years, there was a widespread belief that disabled people must be looked after and could not live independently; as Garland notes, some people in their 50s and 60s still think this way.
This mindset began to shift after Malta ratified the UN-CRPD in October 2012. Since then, perceptions have changed not only among non-disabled people but also among Maltese people with disabilities. Garland explains, “People now, especially in their 20s and 30s, have a much clearer understanding that a disabled person can live independently if supported with their specific access needs.”
After the UN-CRPD was ratified, the commission successfully amended the law. “We are the independent monitoring mechanism,” Rhoda Garland explains. “So as well as working as an equality body and doing investigations into discrimination cases, we are also responsible for awareness raising and monitoring the implementation of the UN-CRPD articles and the national disability strategy within Malta.“
Becoming independent in line with the Paris Principles
Currently, Garland notes, “We are still under a ministry.“ However, upcoming legislation aims to shift the commission out of ministry oversight, granting it true independence in line with the Paris Principle. At present, the commission falls under the Ministry of Inclusion and the Voluntary Sector, which ties it to the government and sometimes complicates independent decision-making.
The Paris Principles were established in 1993 by the United Nations and serve as guidelines to ensure that there is no political interference in the work of a monitoring organization such as the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. “It’s important that we don’t have pressure from the government to portray things in a certain way or be more conciliatory when we don’t feel we ought to be. So it’s giving us the ability to criticise more usefully. We will be outside the ministry and under parliament rather than under the government. That will give us the ability to look after peoples‘ rights a lot better,“ Garland explains.
Although Malta’s commission could take public and private organizations to court for not complying with accessibility law, the government could legally make such decisions more difficult. Greater independence would reduce pressure from being too close to the government.
The commission would review government policies to determine whether they align with the Maltese disability strategy and provide advice if necessary. As an independent organization, the government could not stop them from deciding against certain strategies if they don’t comply with these policies. “For example, this year we are looking at domestic violence and whether violence shelters are mainstream accessible,“ Garland explains.
“The good thing about having a national strategy is having a clear guideline of what is right and what is not, and being able to report them. And most importantly: Being able to act against those who don’t follow them,“ she goes on. “If a building isn’t accessible, the commission can simply deny them water and electricity until they make it accessible“. And this doesn’t apply only to public buildings, but also to larger or pricier private sectors. If an apartment block is built, it has to have a certain number of accessible flats, and if it doesn’t, then, according to the national disability strategy, they have to make them accessible.
Unfortunately, there is one little pinch of salt in this: Should disabled people decide to take it further and go to court, it might take ages until there’s finally a solution, since courts in Malta are fairly slow.
“We are working on that at the moment,” says Rhoda Garland. “For now, we try to find amicable solutions—and usually, we do. Since Malta is such a small island country, everyone knows each other, and nobody wants bad PR or a bad reputation. Therefore, there is almost always a solution.”
The progress of employment strategies
Another major part of the commission’s work is improving the employment sector for people with disabilities. “With employment, Malta unfortunately has a history of hiding disabled people in the cellar. Back in the 1950s, because of the religious connotations of them being cursed by God,“ Rhoda Garland says. “Then in the 60s, society thought they were a charitable project that society needed to look after, as they thought they couldn’t do anything on their own. And it is only when the UN-CRPD came in, and we signed up to it, that we said: no! We have the right to work!“
Although a 2 percent quota was introduced in the late 1960s, it was not enforced until 2017. Since then, many schemes have been implemented to help companies employ people with disabilities, but also sanctions if they don’t. This means companies pay a fee if they don’t employ a certain number of disabled people.
Progress is ongoing. “We still aren’t where we’d like to be with disabled people in leading roles. It’s improving, and people now see that it doesn’t usually cost much, and there’s no harm in employing disabled people. Still, most are given smaller jobs. But we are working on it,“ Garland explains.
Deinstitutionalization
In addition to employment, one of Rhoda Garland’s biggest projects is the deinstitutionalization of people with disabilities living in care homes. “There are people I have met who have been living there almost all their lives,” she explains. “That mostly has to do with the fact that parents would be anxious about what would happen to their disabled children if they die.“ One of the main tasks Garland is taking very seriously is talking to parents and explaining that, once the right structures are in place, a disabled person could do anything they put their mind to. “What we need is people who provide assistance, and unfortunately, we don’t have enough service providers. So we need to train service providers and assistants, as well as people who assist people, especially those with learning disabilities, to make their own decisions. And then we could provide far more people with disabilities with their own flat, work, and a way to earn their living without being in a home where people tell them when to eat, when to sleep, and when to get up without having any contact with the outside world.“
The problem is that structures need to be changed to provide the financial support and the personal resources. “At the end of the day, it is far cheaper if we had the assistance and support to have people with disabilities living independently. But that would mean having to get rid of the care homes.”
This problem affects not only Malta but disabled people worldwide. If funding shifted toward independent living, care homes would lose their right to exist. While partnering closely with the Maltese government may not be the ultimate solution, it is perhaps the best way forward. Malta benefits from laws rooted in British law, which has long given disability law more prominence than in many other countries. Ultimately, Malta can be seen as a small but progressive nation moving toward a more empowering world for people with disabilities.
This article was written by Amy Zayed and first published on the Global Disability News Network.
The Global Disability News Network is a collaborative, community-driven and fully accessible multimedia platform sharing authentic disability stories and news from around the world, created by disabled people and their allies to amplify diverse voices and drive disability justice. Read more at globaldisabilitynews.org.