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Malta’s Prime Minister Tells The World: ‘The Future Is Female, Let’s Achieve Gender Equality In Our Lifetime’

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Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has urged governments worldwide to commit themselves to achieving gender equality, warning that women should not be made to pay a bit-part role in society and the workplace.

“The future is female, for we need to understand that we cannot succeed when approximately half of our global population is being held back,” Muscat told the UN General Council in New York yesterday.

“Women have for centuries played an important role in society both in communities and for the past decades in places of work. Yet this role has been underestimated, under-acknowledged and at times even unrecognized.”

“I firmly believe that the strong worldwide momentum pushing for women’s rights should inspire leaders to review the pace of progress and ensure that Governments commit to achieving gender equality in our lifetime.”

He said that Malta has promoted several initiatives to encourage women to enter the workplace, such as the tapering of social benefits and the introduction of free childcare.

“The result was essentially a silent social revolution,” Muscat said. “The female employment rate in Malta increased from 52% in 2013 to 63.4% in 2018.”

He said the government’s next step is to ensure a higher rate of female participation in Parliament, which is why it has proposed a temporary gender quota mechanism to ensure gender balance among the country’s elected representatives.

“Malta firmly believes that gender balance in politics would benefit not only women and female politicians, but also parties themselves and the rest of society at large,” he said. “Our record in female representation where political decisions are taken is meagre, to say the least. In this regard and aware of the persistent under-representation of women in Parliament, we launched a reform proposing affirmative action that can help us bridge the gap.”

“An individual’s contribution to society and the relevance of one’s thoughts and capabilities should not be affected by gender. We have to come to terms that societal advancement has always been equated with empowerment and therefore discrimination ultimately affects a nations’s resilience and standing.”

Besides women’s rights, Muscat’s speech also focused on LGBT+ equality and rights for children and people with disabilities. 

READ NEXT: General Workers’ Union In Favour Of Provisions Tackling Gender Pay Gap In Malta

Tim is interested in the rapid evolution of human society and is passionate about justice, human rights and cutting-edge political debates. You can follow him on Instagram or Twitter/X at @timdiacono or reach out to him at [email protected]

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