This Weekend Is Your Chance To Grill The Main Political Parties On LGBT Rights In Malta
In the spirit of International Week Against Homophobia And Transphobia earlier this week, a Q&A session is being organised this weekend with Malta’s main political parties in the run-up to June’s snap general election, and we’ll be moderating the whole thing.
This particular session, however, will be moving beyond the items on each party’s manifesto which we’ve already heard about time and time again, and will instead by tackling the LGBTIQ community.
The Q&A session is being co-organised by Allied Rainbow Communities and Malta Gay Rights Movement, two Maltese NGOs who have been fighting to achieve full equality for LGBT people and support the community for a number of years.
This year’s session couldn’t come at a more adequate time, considering a general election is a mere two weeks away and Malta’s just been announced as ranking first on the ILGA-Europe’s Rainbow Index for the second consecutive year. The Index looks at the 49 Council of Europe Member States and the amount of LGBTIQ legislations and policies which have been introduced. Bringing the rear of the index are Russia and Azerbaijan.
As LGBTIQ blog GayMalta.com explained, however, we’re still some ways away from achieving the best possible environment for the community. “Malta still lacks trans sensitive and specific health services; its HIV treatment formulary is outdated and far from what could be considered best practice; and access to reproductive health for same sex couples remains criminalised.” ARC and MGRM have presented a joint manifesto to the four major political parties tackling these issues and more, and these will definitely be mentioned during tomorrow’s debate.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, PN leader Dr. Simon Busuttil, Alternattiva Demokratika’s Ralph Cassar and Monique Agius from PD have all confirmed their attendance.
The Q&A session will take place at Hotel Phoenicia, and while the tickets were fully subscribed within a couple of hours, a recent post explained that due to the immense positive response they received, they decided to add seats up for registration.
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