Miriam Dalli’s child exploitation – Kevin Cassar

What does the Commissioner for Children do when a Labour Minister and a Labour MEP candidate use public funds to exploit the children of a local celebrity for personal political advantage? Nothing.

Commissioner Antoinette Vassallo was conspicuous by her silence despite Miriam Dalli’s and Steve Ellul’s flagrant UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) breaches.

Dalli and Ellul were responsible for signing up Ira Losco to use her children as props for their personal political advantage using public funds.

Without the required approval, Ellul, Labour’s MEP candidate and Project Green CEO, awarded Losco a 6-month contract worth €5,000 out of our taxes.

Losco bound herself to upload posts on her Facebook and Instagram pages promoting Project Green.  The contract obliged Losco to post photos of her two children at least twice a month as directed by Project Green.  She was also bound to take her children to one Project Green activity every month.

For each post with photos of her children, Losco was paid over €400.  Losco tagged the personal pages of the minister and Ellul in her posts.  Despite being paid for those posts, she failed to make that clear, contravening basic advertising standards.

Dalli and Ellul were using thousands of euro of our money to promote their personal profiles by exploiting Losco’s children.

Their malignant scheme was only revealed when The Shift, through a Freedom of Information request, obtained a copy of Losco’s contract.

Minister Dalli not only abused her power by diverting public funds for personal political promotion but, through her CEO Steve Ellul broke the UN Convention on Children’s Rights.

The public was deceived when Losco failed to indicate that her posts were paid.  Worse, Dalli allowed Ellul to use public funds to unfairly boost his profile and damage other candidates’ electoral prospects.

Dalli and Ellul’s worst offence in the whole saga must certainly be their revolting exploitation of children for political ends.  For a minister to recruit a mother to use images of her children for the minister’s political benefit and that of her protege’, Steve Ellul, reeks of pure depravity.

The Hintalovon Child Rights Foundation makes it clear that “any party or politician who campaigns with children is in violation of children’s rights”.

The Foundation lists minimum rules that politicians must abide by in relation to children.  The most relevant is that “Children are not public figures – use of their images may violate their rights and best interests”.

They point out that children do not have agency to decide whether they want to be featured in political advertisements.  Their cardinal rule is that “Children should not be used for political purposes”.

But Miriam Dalli and her underling, Steve Ellul, couldn’t be bothered.

Nothing is more shameful than a minister abusing children’s rights for political reasons. Or maybe there is.

Even more shameful is using taxpayer funds to abuse children’s rights.  And even more shameful is duping the public and withholding information that taxpayers paid for those promotional messages exploiting children.

Dalli and Ellul are in breach of several articles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Article 3 (1) states that “in all actions concerning children… the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration”.

Article 3(2) insists that “States undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being”.   Article 16 (1) is categorical: “No child shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his or her privacy”. And 16(2) states “The child has the right to the protection of the law against such interference”.

Article 19 (1) puts a huge responsibility on the State to protect children from exploitation even by their parents: “State parties shall take all appropriate legislative, administrative, social and educational measures to protect the child from all forms of exploitation while in the care of parent(s)”.

Article 32(1) obliges “State parties (to) recognise the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation”.

This is pure monetisation of minors at the behest of a government minister and her CEO.  State parties are not only legally obliged to prevent the economic exploitation of children. They are also obliged, as outlined in Article 32 (2c), to “provide for appropriate penalties or other sanctions to ensure the effective enforcement of the present article”.

That Miriam Dalli and Steve Ellul have ensnared Ira Losco in a contract that demands the exploitation of her children for political benefit using taxpayers’ funds is shocking enough. Even more disturbing is that the Children’s Commissioner, Antoinette Vassallo, has remained completely silent.

Her office is meant to promote the welfare of children and compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Instead, the Commissioner, the former Labour Ta’ Xbiex Mayor,  former chairperson of the Housing Authority Board and wife of former Labour MP Adrian Vassallo, conveniently looks away.

Expect another Labour puppet Commissioner, the Standards Commissioner, to defend Dalli soon. But that won’t detract from the truth that Miriam Dalli has misused public funds, exploited children for political gain, cheated the other MEP candidates and deceived the public.