Why is this woman being held on remand? Why is she even being prosecuted in the first place?
How on earth could it ever be considered better for anyone involved to hold her in jail during her prosecution, while her four year-old son is placed in the care of Appogg – which means at an orphanage run by a religious order, because the state has no such orphanages itself?
Imagine how the boy must be feeling. Imagine how his mother must be feeling.
Who is this helping?
And another thing – exactly why is this woman being prosecuted for ‘abandoning her child’ just because he was found ‘wandering alone’ in a field close to the flat where they are living? Maybe he just went out to play. At what point did we stop considering it perfectly normal for children to play in the fields outside their home?
Or maybe he opened the door and went out without his mother’s knowledge. This, too, happens regularly. This, too, is normal.
If the woman and child had been Maltese, and more especially, someone who is part of the community, the village policeman would simply have taken the child home and said, “Sinjura, taf li ghandek it-tifel jigri barra wahdu?” And that would have been the end of that.
More to the point, the neighbours would have taken the child home or rung the mother. But what did the neighbours do in this case? They rang the police to say that there was a child alone in the fields. And they left the child alone in the fields until the police arrived. Because he was German, and they didn’t know him.
Typical. I suppose they couldn’t be fagged to go up to the child and say, where do you live, honey? Will you show me? No, instead they rang the police.
And now a whole lot of people are in trouble for nothing, a small bewildered boy is in a home with nuns, his mother is in prison, the German police have been alerted, and what are the odds that mothers and children had a very, very good reason for leaving Germany and giving the fathers of their children the slip in the first place.
As the police themselves said, this is not being treated as a case of child abduction.
So, if you’re a ‘bloody foreigner’, beware of letting your children play outdoors. The Maltese police will sequester your child and prosecute you, the courts will order you be held on remand, and you will find yourself splashed all over the newspapers. But if you’re Maltese, the neighbours will bring your child back home or keep an eye on him for you, and the police, at most, might tell you not to leave your children unsupervised outdoors.
Letting your children play outdoors unsupervised, not noticing if he has run outside while you’re in the kitchen, does NOT constitute child abandonment. This is beyond horrendous.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140620/local/germans-in-gozo-not-a-case-of-child-abduction.524173
Honestly, did you expect any better from the newly appointed magistrate Joanne ‘Viva l-Labour’ Vella Cuschieri?
I fully agree on the playing outside matter. My parents were always fine as long as I was back when it was getting dark.
I roamed the forests and the fields and it turned me into a self-reliant person who is able to appreciate and enjoy nature. I don’t know what will become of this generation who need to send a status report to their parents every 30 minutes.
Legally though, the problem is that it would be a child abduction if the child’s father had at least shared custody (which is the default custody regime after separation and even after divorce in Germany).
[Daphne – The Malta police have said quite specifically that it is NOT child abduction.]
Contrary to the reports I have been reading in Malta, no court order or other agreement is required to make it illegal for the mother to take the child out of Germany without the other parent’s consent.
The illegality of such an act is based on statute (sec. 235 II German Criminal Code) and the Hague Child Abduction Convention and does therefore not require any additional court order to apply.
All mothers should then be prosecuted. We all used to run around in fields as kids.
There are a lot of things wrong with that Island – like anywhere else.
Most certainly, one thing we all need to mount a crusade against is calling the Maltese “warm, welcoming, hospitable and such utter nonsense”.
In France, at the men’s lavatories everyone you come across will acknowledge you and say “Bonjour”. This happens everywhere, entering lifts, at shops, and so on. In Spain, perfect strangers greet you in the streets of smaller towns and villages, and always say “Hola, Buenos dias” when you walk into any establishment. Always.
I could go around the world, naturally. It is not the case in Malta. You are hardly ever acknowledged, people walk past or into you, and at most utter a grunt or twitch their heads (that irks me so much), as they do in Church when the sign of peace is exchanged. Rarely a handshake, and when that happens, it is limpid and insincere.
As someone living overseas, it takes me two days of stares and bewildered looks before I remember to stop acknowledging people. The other day at the Malta Hilton I walked into a lift full of Maltese people evidently going for some bash or wedding and I loudly said “G’morning” with a big beaming smile and all I got was awkward stares, a muttered grunt and people looking intently at their shoes or the lift ceiling.
The worst one ever was walking into Church for a funeral as a lovely old lady was laboriously making her way down the parvis steps and I waited until she finished her descent and then said “Bongu Sinjura”. She turned round with a sweet smile and said “Bongu, hi, nafek?” I said “I don’t think so, but I just wanted to say…”
Even complete strangers in the desert say hello good morning. Where has the Malta I knew 30 years ago gone? People really used to be nice, saying good morning and generally nice to each other.
Hear, hear.
I agree that in countries such as Spain and France it is common practice to greet and, in the case of the former at least, to chit-chat with complete strangers. In Malta it is generally not done, unless it is completely genuine. The very fact that there is no word for ‘hello/hola/ciao’ should already say a lot about the subject.
As for the uncomfortable experience in the lift, my advice to you is to just not bother trying to exchange pleasantries with the Maltese. It is pointless. There is also a certain sense of disdain for foreigners which goes some way to explaining why tourists are constantly ripped off, made fools of to their faces, as though people are not able to work out that it is happening just because the mickey-takers are speaking in Maltese..
Attitudes are changing – slowly. The thing I absolutely refuse to engage in is a thing the Maltese like to pretend they do: kissing on both cheeks. It is always half-hearted, awkward and forced. I refuse to waste my time with these people so I just give them my hand, male or female.
One of those times when I regret reading your post, Daphne.
You are so right (as usual) in such a sad situation.
I must admit that these facts did not come to my mind, but your highlighting these serious issues makes me feel so disappointed at our supposedly perfect system.
I don’t get it either, but there could be more to it. We don’t know the whole story.. the German police are also involved, so this is not just a Malta thing.
It’s the Maltese inbred facked up logic: she ‘abandoned’ her son, so it’s OK if we take the child away from her.
As a father, I cannot fathom how a child playing in a field near home is considered abandoned.
All 6-year-olds are inquisitive by nature and a lovely field near home holds some fascinating treasures for intelligent children.
If anything, the mother is guilty of inattention, rather than abandoning a child.
That is, unless there is more to it than is being published.
Otherwise, this is a case of the law being an ass.
As usual.
I suggest to everyone not to judge this situation based solely on the information that is available to you. You might find that there is more to this story than you could imagine…
My thoughts exactly…couldn’t have put it better.
Ok, beat me up.
The child was obviously not known to any of the neighbours. He was all alone. They may have tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t speak English, let alone Maltese.
He might have been a lost tourist. They were right – and responsible – to call the police and wait till they arrive. He would have been an easy prey for a paedophile, the world being no longer as safe as it used to be when we were children.
If that mother ran away with her child to be out of reach of the German authorities or the father, she never should have let him out of sight if it’s protecting him that she is after. Even if not, you don’t let a four year old in another country roam all alone in a field.
There are hundreds of Maltese women who are doing much worse than leaving their child playing alone in a field. But that seems to be all right for the authorities.
What a country!
Perhaps the police have more information from the German police about this case than you do Daphne, which they are not making public.
I can’t see any reason why the police should hold this woman in custody.
I suspect that the Malta police or Gozo police suffer from an inferiority complex and are overdoing it so those disciplinarian and strict regimented Germans will be impressed by our extreme thoroughness and no-nonsense approach.
Too bad they don’t do this with habitual thieves, hair-trigger violent people, vandals, sex perverts and murderers.
Il-hsibijiet tieghi ezatt. U issa grazzi ghad-deffiesa li hawn jigru f’kull rokna ta’ Malta u ghall-gustizzja tan-nejk, din il-povra mara ghandha fil-kondott (nispera li le?) li kienet akkuzata bl-abbandun ta’ binha.
Probabbli ukoll xi ragel Germaniz bhalissa tghidx x’ ihokk idu u jirringrazzja ‘l Maltin talli ghinuh jaghmel dak li ma rnexxielux jaghmel f’pajjizu.
Alla jaf minn xiex ghaddiet biex waslet hawn bit-tifel biex spiccat hi l-habs u t-tifel mifrud min ommu. Cahhadna l-liberta’ li min jaf kemm kienu ilhom joholmu biha.
Nispera li ghandi zball ghax hekk nixtieq! Imbaghad dawn l-istess nies jaghlqu t-twieqi biex ma jisimghux l-ghajjat t’ugigh minn xi mara abbuzata minflok icemplu ghal-ghajnuna kif xieraq f’dawn is-sitwazzjonijiet tal-biza’. Ara vera qeghdin sew!
There was no mention in the new police video that if children are found alone, they will be sent to an orphanage and their mother sent to prison.
These Germans, they are such bad people. Arrest them, the mother and the child, all of them.
As for some Maltese mothers, well some spend their money on silicone implants and other cosmetics while they leave their children badly clothed and poorly fed. Ask state school teachers and they will tell you about the pitiful state of some of their pupils. But they are Maltese mothers, so they must be good.
This German lady is treated as a criminal.
On the other hand, the Vella bikers, who are criminals and who have been investigated in Australia and Tasmania, and about whom the Malta Police, like their European counterparts, have been informed about their criminal activities expansion in Europe, seem to be enjoying their stay in Malta.
What a crooked country this is.
Not one communiqué either from the Ministru tal-Pulizija-Waiters or from the PM’s PRO.
My mother would have been in jail too, as I lived in the fields as a child.
What memories I cherish. My regret is that my children cannot do the same, as we have less open safe spaces and too many maniacs driving in the roads.
One has to be more specific: the case happened in Gozo, where foreigners (even Maltese) are treated like aliens.
On the other hand, if something is done by Gozitians – even murder – a shroud of omerta covers it all.
So the child must be feeling really secure now with all those German-speaking people around him at the Maltese children’s home.
One certainly hopes that there is more to this story because so far it absolutely makes no sense.
Pity the police do not seem realize that putting out information which does not seem to follow how the law is applied, further confuses everyone.
The only thing not letting Maltese children out are the cars. I live in a residential area with plenty of open space.
Shock horror, the kids in my neighbourhood still play in the fields, build camps and throw rocks at each other. Must never let mine out of sight again lest I get arrested.
Oh wait, I’m local. T’is all right then.
Prosecute first….. then… well, the important thing is that the prosecuting inspector accumulates his court cases so he can tell the Super what a good, hard-working boy he’s been.
That apart, this is the best piece of ‘safe’ action the Gozitan Police can get. Remember, she’s a foreigner, they won’t meet her again.
Both mother and child must be living through hell – and this when they came to Malta for some peace and safety.
Both are to be pitied. Perhaps the H.E. the President can intervene to have them re-united again.
I would have thought a female magistrate would have been more compassionate.