NEW YORK, July 15, 2004 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The tiny island state of Malta has long been coveted by conquerors for its strategic position off the tip of Sicily in the Mediterranean. In their more than five thousand year history, the Maltese have not been strangers to conquest and colonialism. The latest attempt at conquest is coming from the United Nations in the form of the UN Committee on Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). A compliance committee of the notoriously strident group is putting pressure on the Catholic nation to adopt their leftist feminist ideologies into its domestic law. CEDAW’s committee on discrimination has met and criticized Malta for refusing to adopt the optional protocol to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. Malta, the population of which is 94% Roman Catholic, maintains one of the highest birth rates in Europe and has steadfastly refused to legalize abortion in the face of pressure from the European Union.
Malta ratified the CEDAW convention in 1991 but the “experts” on the compliance committee are looking for ways to force the country to adopt its agenda into their legislation. During a review of Malta’s compliance, the committee instructed Maltese representatives to incorporate UN protocols when drafting legislation. They said the government should consider the Convention when interpreting domestic law, submit it to Parliament, and accede to the Convention’s Optional Protocol.
The committee revealed its anti-family bias when it criticized the Maltese measures to protect women who do not choose to enter the work force and to provide maternity leave for working mothers. A UN report on the meeting said, “Several experts also commented on the low percentage of women in Malta’s labour market, suggesting that the country review measures it had taken to encourage women to work. Such measures, which included various types of maternity leave, might actually discourage them from working in the paid labour force, and reinforce their roles as primary caregivers.” The committee complained that women left the work force at about 25, and that “breadwinners were still predominantly male and caregiving had remained a woman’s prerogative.” It seems that nothing other than complete compliance is acceptable to the UN committee. The committee examined and dismissed a list of ‘reservations’ to the Convention submitted by Malta. The report said that such reservations were “a threat to the Convention’s universality, and serious consideration should be given to their withdrawal.” In an interview earlier this year, with LifeSiteNews.com, long-time UN pro-family lobbyist Babette Francis said that these are typical of the kinds of autocratic, high-handed tactics the UN uses to force independent states to further their radical agenda.
To read the Committee’s report: https://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/wom1456.doc.htm Re-read the LifeSiteNews.com inverview with Babette Francis: https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/mar/040323a.html ph