Solve the problem, rather than just dealing with it
I found myself reading a newspaper report about Dar Guzeppa Debono in Gozo, where unmarried girls wait out their pregnancies, and asking myself incredulously why this ‘home for fallen women’ is being put to readers as something positive, rather than as evidence of a backward society in which girls who fall pregnant are cast out by their parents.
That home was set up as late as 25 years ago – when much of Western Europe had moved on after the social revolution of the 1960s – to take in girls whose parents had rejected them for the perceived shame they had brought on their families by having sex outside marriage and worse, by producing what was seen as a bastard child.
A bastard grandchild was shameful, but throwing your pregnant daughter out to fend for herself was not.
Such was the hypocrisy that ruined many lives and condemned countless thousands of children to be raised by strangers, and not just in Malta, though here it went on for much longer.
It is redolent of the horrible attitudes encapsulated in The Magdalene Sisters, a film which details the incarceration of fallen women and wayward girls in Ireland in homes run by nuns, where they worked as laundry slaves, sometimes until their death.
Dar Guzeppa Debono is the successor to other such homes for ‘fallen women’, invariably in Gozo and hosted by nuns, where families from mainland Malta would dispatch their wayward daughters in the early stages of pregnancy, allowing them to return to the family home only after the birth and without their baby.
Meanwhile, they would talk about extended illness necessitating long stays in clinics or indoors, or prolonged visits to relations overseas. Those Maltese parents who could afford to do so went even further, and sent their pregnant daughters to England to ‘drop’ their babies there.
The newspaper report said that there is no similar home on the main island, as there is in Gozo. It appeared to suggest that this is because Gozo is more advanced in extending support to its fallen women, rather than more backward in throwing them out onto the street so that their parents might maintain their standing in the community. But mainland Malta has an excellent support programme for pregnant girls, most of whom are still of school age.
The difference is that it is not a residential programme because those who run it are committed to the long-term good of the girls, rather than just coping with the short-term fall-out, and this must necessarily involve bringing the parents back on board.
Some years ago I interviewed the woman who headed the programme and she told me that most parents are furious at first, not least because they consider their school-age daughters to have ruined their prospects.
But when they see that the situation is accepted and dealt in an efficient manner, with no hint of shame or embarrassment, and that there are so many others in the same boat, they set aside their own reservations about ‘what people think’ and just get on with it. That is the way it should be done.
Throwing your daughter out because she has announced that she is pregnant is in the same category of totally unacceptable, socially retrograde behaviour as casting your son out because he has told you he is homosexual.
Every effort should be made to communicate the fact to parents like this that falling pregnant or being gay are not even remotely the cause of shame, but casting out your own offspring most definitely is, and not just shameful but reprehensible. The Bishop of Gozo was quoted in the newspaper report as praising the home for fallen women as promoting the message of family life and the sacredness of the human being from conception.
Really? What the home is actually doing is picking up the pieces of the mess created by those parents whose view of family life and the sacredness of the human being – perhaps because of the stringent message promoted by some clergymen – has led them to cast their daughters out.
We must ask the Bishop of Gozo why he failed to mention this, and why, instead of merely praising the work done by the home, he does not take to his pulpit to condemn the disgraceful, inhumane and antiquated behaviour of parents who care more about what the neighbours think than about what happens to their own daughter and grandchild.
By setting up a home to take in girls thrown out on the street, what these good-hearted and well-intentioned people are doing effectively is telling parents that it is all right to reject their daughter and grandchild because they are there to clean up the mess.
We are not talking here about providing shelter for the victims of violent drunks or for babies and children abandoned and neglected by their heroin-addled, prostitute mothers. Those are hopeless cases. Shelter has to be provided. We are speaking here of parents who were perfectly happy to raise their daughter for 15, 16, 17, 18 years, but who then reject her because she is pregnant without being married.
This is not a crisis that cannot be resolved, so offering alternative accommodation to these girls to enable their parents to throw them out of the house without a qualm is to shore up their self-justification and righteous rage. Much more can be achieved through making the parents see that the real shame is in throwing their daughter out.
Surely this is possible even in Gozo. Please don’t tell me that society on the smaller island is still so very backward that there remain parents there who can’t or won’t see the real shame in rejecting their own flesh and blood, but can see only the perceived shame of a bastard in the family.
If that is the case, then this is a real problem and the very one that should be tackled with more urgent priority than girls who fall pregnant outside marriage. Those are a fact of life everywhere and anywhere except in Islamic shariah states where women are allowed nowhere near men and boys, and where the penalty for pregnancy outside marriage is death or public lashing.
This article was published in The Malta Independent last Thursday.
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Bull’s eye, as usual. I am sorry I have to disappoint you though. In my humble opinion the answer to your point in the penultimate paragraph is, unfortunately, yes. Although I know very little about the situation in Gozo, I have seen the mentality in this regard change over the past forty years in Malta.
I have had to deal professionally with dozens of cases of “unwanted” pregnancies to my chagrin and it is only in the last ten years or so that Maltese people seem to me to be seeing sense in this respect. I shudder to think what the situation in the sister island is like. I hope I can be proved wrong for the sake of all these poor girls and their lovely babies.
Then there are those who’d have gone “shopping” to London, coming back with their reputation intact.
what a shame
If parents are legally responsible for their children up to the age of 18, can they actually throw any of their offspring out of the house for such reasons or for any other for that matter?
If some parents in Gozo are still pushing their children out of home for these reasons than I would imagine the Commissioner for Children’s Rights ought to look into this situation and bring the full brunt of the law to bear on our sister island.
If this situation is real in Gozo, than I would greatly urge the Bishop of Gozo, his clergy and lay catechists to begin a program of religious education for parents highlighting the responsibilities of parenthood.
That parents should be with their children at a time when they need them most should be the sine qua non of good Catholic Christian belief.
I totally agree with the article. I thought about this when I read the article over the weekend. You read about so called ‘honour’ killings in the Muslim community in the UK and think what a backward mentality some people have. It’s shocking to see some of the same mentality here. A family is meant to be there for each other in good and bad times. You would think that a country that claims to be one of the most Christian in the world would practise more of its values.
Good article. In the meantime, Daphne, please also appreciate that these girls need a roof, and not just any roof. Yes, parents need to learn how to deal with these situations, and girls (and their boyfriends, of course) falling pregnant outside marriage need to stop saying “Ma nafx kif grat” because it’s simple, they know full well. ultimately, the outside-marriage child ends up being very loved in 99% of the cases.
Decriminalising abortion would solve the problem.
In other words, decriminalising killing an unborn child? Since when killing our offspring is okay to be legal?
Abortion is never justified. And I am NOT a brain-washed Catholic, if that’s what you think. I just value life, in all forms, as should all civilized people do.
This subject has been discussed to death and back. For the sake of clarity, let me repeat for the millionth time: Abortion is unpleasant, but it is a necessary evil.
More importantly, human life is not sacred. If anyone has found a magic formula to sublimate all the crap we have to wade through during our existence on this crowded dirty planet, and turn it into something “sacred”, then I’d like to know. Really. Send your suggestions to [email protected]
Mhux kemm tmur Sqallija? No need to decriminalize anything. Which is just as good, ghax hawn Malta l-fetu huwa SAKRU. Wara li ommu tobzqu ‘l barra kulhadd ghal ghajnu, sintendi, imma sakemm qieghed jinkuba, qisu tigiega rotisserie fil-forn: ‘TMISSUHIEX GHAX GHADA MA SARITX!’
Life is precious! HAH!
Could you possibly think so? Most if not all girls would not even consider abortion. Good upbringing, proper protection (here where the Church fails miserably and indirectly induces such cases) self and mutual respect between the couple involved would solve the problem. Mela abort!!! According to your logic we should start killing people simply to solve the parking problem. BTW congrats Daphne excellent article as usual.
[Daphne – Actually, Timotius, you would be surprised how many ‘girls’ not only consider abortion but just go ahead and do it, and the ‘better’ the family the more likely this is.]
You might be right Daphne, I apologise for not explaining well. Girls who consider abortion, in my opinion, are worse than animals, unless the abortion is needed in extreme circumstances. The ones you are referring to do so for the fun of it so they can continues with the promiscuous life, maybe as a result of the “better” upbringing” you refer to.
[Daphne – I don’t agree with you at all. Your view of unwanted pregnancy, abortion and the decision on whether or not to bring a child into the world is simplistic in the extreme.]
Strictly on the matter at hand, there are many other things that should be in place before contemplating that route.
Daphne mentioned a change in culture and educating the parents. Other things that help: sex education, including contraceptives and Plan B. The biggest problem is that these kids have no aspirations for their future and a lot of time to spare. They are turning into adults but have the world-view of a toddler. What’s worst is that having the baby without a lot of support from family and state will further stunt their emotional and intellectual growth.
Stenna ftit. Contraceptives and Plan B? X’inhi l-Plan B jekk il-contraceptives ma jahdmux? Abort?
Rigward il-kumment banali li “these kids have no aspirations for their future”, nghid biss jeez! Hafna kienu dawk b’aspirazzjoni ghall-futur, u hafna kienu dawk li fallew. Trid tghid li l-unplanned pregnancies huma kollha rizultat ta’ nuqqas ta’ aspirazzjoni?
Daphne, are you implying you accept abortion? Just trying to understand.
[Daphne – Accept? I can’t stand black-and-white thinking, that’s all.]
u ejja Baxxter………..nirrangaw zball bi zball iehor?
Iva, jekk hemm bzonn. Nirrangaw hajja potenzjalment irrovinata (tal-omm) b’mewt ta’ fetu. Painful, sad, evil, but necessary, given the circumstances.
Fantastic article and to the point; unfortunately there are some cases where parents are more worried about what the neighbours are going to say about them than about what the future holds for these young girls and their offspring.
@ HP Baxter
Abortion is murder. Unmarried mothers should be cared for in their families with the help of state agencies.
[Daphne – If you listen to some of the stories told by the men in this child abuse case, and you have the slightest bit of imagination, you will be thrown into an existential crisis and your certainties will be undermined. Nobody can listen to those stories without wondering which is the greater evil: aborting a foetus or condemning a baby to that sort of life and a deep well of despair that goes on until death.]
hahaha hadd ma fhem l-ghan ta’ din d-dar. u sfortunatament hemm hafna misunderstundings u fatti mhux korretti. that not professionalism.
Tut! For shame H.P. Decriminilising abortion indeed. How about our teens and twenties stop with the condom jokes and learn how to use the bloody things?
shame to you ms. daphne caruana galizia. please do consider yourself as unprofessional and a very bad journalist because if you are professional you would analyse things the way they are today before you would talk and insult the home. the home is doing alot of good and is helping alot of unmarried mothers to live a normal life just any other person. what you said in the article maybe did happen years and years ago but definetely not nowadays!!
daphne you should analyse things well before you open your big mouth b****. at this point if you will not excuse yourself with the people working for dar guzeppa debono and its clients; who by the way are very happy with the support offered by the home, you will be showing that you are very unprofessional. What course did you do? because i always learnt about ethics where no one can lie about anyone but i think you must have forgot that bit.
to anyone reading this comment please ignore this person’s article as it simply says the opposite about this home. the home is simply doing alot of good including support to unmarried and teenage mothers, education to the youngsters and help wherever required. Well done maria and all the team at this home. you deserve to be awarded unlike daphne who deserves to be put behind bars for this bad name done to the home.
I think you are missing the point. What I believe Daphne is saying is that rather than take in unmarried mothers/mothers-to-be, focus should be on educating their families and the public in general.
A pregnancy outside marriage is no longer, after all, a big “to do”. It is, on the other hand, quite commonplace in this day and age.
On a different note, what really struck me in the interview/news article (in The times) about the girl who had a child at 19 and found help at the home in question is that – despite her child being now 3 or 4 years old – there was no mention made of her (the mother) working or studying. What she did say was that she still “manages to go out”. And work? Study? Is she encouraged to live off benefits or what?
A kiss to all newborn babies …. btw …. I dislike the term “fallen women” as used in the context of this article … why fallen!!!!
should all the falls lead to newborns … bring on the falls ;)
[Daphne – It’s an old term, used ironically. Look it up.]
I know!
I notice that no one has mentioned the most obvious solution to an unplanned baby: give it up for adoption.
And before anyone starts whining about the emotional trauma of giving up a child, I appreciate the difficulties but in the long run a woman can live more happily with the thought that she gave her child a chance at life than the knowledge that she killed it.
Having said that, the contorted logic of women who have an abortion leaves me breathless. All the women I know who have had an abortion persuade themselves that matters are reversed by bringing the next baby to term – they actually believe that baby number two is the first one making it the second time around. I have heard nonsense like “God gave it a second chance” or “God wanted it to be born.”
@ H.P. Even if it turns out that human life is not sacred, it is better to treat it as if it were so. The consequences of behaving as though it weren’t simply don’t bear thinking about. I understand your disenchantment with the human race, believe me, but sometimes we forget how often our animal instincts clash with our innate sense of what is right, especially when we are surrounded by a constant, subtle and insidious invitation to act on our desires. It is an invitation we must resist. Because others fail to resist it does not leave the way clear for us to do the same. Ultimately each one of us is his own master.