For a long time we have prided ourselves on the fact that the Maltese nation is one which treasures and cherishes its children.

But during a day long seminar held recently, with the wind howling outside and the rain lashing against the windows, I heard stories of children who are burned with cigarettes and suffer head injuries; abused by those who brought them into the world, and horribly neglected by those who should be protecting them.

The well-attended seminar was called, The Disadvantaged Child: Problems and Solutions and was organised by YMCA Homeless and Celebrities for Kids (CFK). CFK is the brainchild of Chris Fearne, a pediatric specialist who, unfortunately, has seen his share of what happens when children are physically harmed and decided that something needed to be done.

The terrible weather seemed fitting somehow; it was as if the elements were conspiring to bring home to the packed venue just how angry Mother Nature is at the unnatural way these children are being treated.

For, is it natural to bear a child and then treat him/her badly? No – I believe it goes against what nature intended, for even female animals have a maternal instinct and will attack anyone who dares approach their babies. I’m singling out the female of the species because it is hard for me to wrap my head around the notion that a woman who carries a child for nine months can have no compassion or feelings towards her own flesh and blood. I try to imagine what could have gone wrong in this woman’s life to have stunted her ability to care about her baby, and my brain can only conjure up the most unspeakable scenarios.

Sometimes, however, it does not even have to be about having had a bad childhood herself – maybe the explanation is even simpler. I honestly think that not every woman is cut out to be a mother, and that the maternal instinct is not automatically inserted into our DNA just because we happen to be born female. Some women are motherly and nurturing; others are not.  While there are cases where the monstrous behaviour of the mother is unacceptable, there are other instances where it would be cruel to blame the woman because her lack of empathy is not deliberate.

Some women think they want to be mothers (or feel they should have children “because everyone does”) and then discover to their own horror and dismay that they cannot connect with this squalling baby. They wait and wait for the bond which everyone speaks of to materialize, and it never does. If the lack of bonding is due to severe postnatal depression then it becomes even more tragic for all concerned. In this case, the neglect is emotional rather than material.

Undeniably, fathers have a duty as well, and a very important one. Men cannot just go round impregnating women with the casualness of a sneeze, then say, ‘oh, look a baby’, and promptly run for the hills. They need to be made aware that they are also responsible for bringing children into the world. We heard, during the seminar, of the depressing cycle of fatherless children who grow up without a positive male role model and who turn to a life of delinquency as a result.  Doctors, psychologists, social workers and other experts in the field gave us the facts and figures, but really, we see the result all around us.  Even obesity has been linked to childhood neglect as the children turn into adolescents who use food as a way of coping with the emptiness in their hearts and the starvation of their souls.

It is all very well for very young single mothers to go on TV and speak openly about an ‘unknown father’ and how it’s OK to bring up kids on their own, but there is something very wrong with this picture and we need to acknowledge it. No matter how badly hurt a woman has been, men cannot and should not be completely cut out of the child’s life. If the biological father is a loser, then the child should at least have uncles or a grandfather who can step in and provide the child with the kind of positive messages needed to help the child become a well-rounded human being. Incidentally, I think the same holds true when a child is being brought up by a couple of the same sex. Various aunts and uncles, or even good friends of the couple, can step in and play a very important role in the child’s upbringing.

In fact, one of the best ideas I heard at the seminar already exists. It’s called www.kellimni.com, a website which uses the medium adolescents love, the Internet, to reach out to them and provide them with a safe space to chat and share their problems, as well to get professional advice.

In the United States there are excellent programmes called Big Brother/Big Sister in which children and teenagers who come from dysfunctional homes are assigned a volunteer willing to give some of their free time just to “hang out” with them. They don’t do anything special, just the normal kind of things one would do with a relative, but the positive experience for these young people of being around someone who can provide a semblance of normality can work wonders.  Let us not forget that for disadvantaged children, it is the normal which is abnormal. What is normal for them is a household where there is abuse of all kinds, including substance abuse. A household where violence, both physical and verbal, is the norm. A household where the parents are too wrapped up in their own problems to notice that there’s nothing for dinner or that no one has done the laundry and there are no clean clothes.

And let us not make the mistake of thinking that child neglect is only to be found in the stereotypes we have in our heads of working class, lower income, people from the South kind of thing. We heard stories from a few social workers who visit government schools, and although they are over-stretched and almost burned out, they pointed out that no one is looking into the potential neglect of children in private schools who come from rich families, but who are being exposed to a questionable home environment just the same.

Of course, the automatic question which comes to mind is, ‘why aren’t these children removed from their parents’? The answer is one which brought all of us up against a brick wall time and time again during that seminar.

Lack of human resources. Lack of enough places in children’s homes. Lack of foster carers willing to take on the more troublesome teenagers. Lack of a proper structure in our penal system which is focused on young people. And above all, a lack of funds.

As society becomes more egotistic and people continue to bring children into the world despite not really wanting them, or being able to adequately care for them, the problems being faced by those who work in the field of child protection services will continue to mount.

However, the organizers of the seminar did not want this to be just a day when everyone sat around and talked. They asked for concrete policy proposals which can be submitted to the authorities, such as the setting up of a special home for delinquents rather than sending those who are under age to jail with adult criminals. I do not want to sound bleak but I hope these proposals don’t end up sitting on someone’s desk gathering dust, like countless reports before them.

For people like Jean Paul Mifsud (who runs the YMCA homeless shelter), who sees firsthand the dire straits of these children, there has been more than enough talk. His frustration is palpable and understandable. As the weeks, months and years roll by and nothing is done, yet another generation of children will grow up into adulthood. They might turn out OK despite all the odds stacked against them, and form healthy families themselves, breaking the pattern of their past and surviving their own traumas in triumph.  But the more likely scenario is that they will repeat the vicious cycle and recreate yet another dysfunctional home life.

Another generation of children will be born into a myriad of social problems, while society tut tuts and perhaps looks upon them with pity and expressions of “jahasra”, but then firmly closes the door on them because, hey, after all, it’s not really our problem.