The European Union and women’s rights in Malta

Abstract

The improvement of women’s lives took a big boost in the nineteenth and twentieth century when concern on women’s lives started to develop. Women had to start to take control of their lives and stop living under the control of men. To have a better understanding of women’s lives at that time, Paul Cassar (1975) talks about the female activist Alfons Galea’s appeal of 1907 to advance women “to women to endeavour to assert themselves not through their physical charms and elegance in dress, but the cultivation of their intellectual and moral talents. It was only by these means that they would learn to look ahead, think in-depth and gain their freedom”. (Cassar. P 1975-77). It was not such a lot of time ago when Women’s rights became equal to fundamental human rights. Women have faced various hurdles to have achieved the rights that they have today, but they are still lacking behind when compared to men.

In this dissertation, I will contact research on women’s right at an international level to see how they have developed worldwide. Then focus, on an EU context to analyse what has been done to improve Women’s rights in its countries. Specifically, whether by Malta joining the EU, did the EU improve women’s rights in Malta. In Malta, even though it is ranged in fifteenth place out of twenty-eighth countries in the Gender Equality Index it still has ways to go, to have Maltese women in the same level as men. In the case study on the issue of abortion in Malta and whether or not this has been affected by the EU is carried out by inductive study and qualitative design. Findings show that by being part of the EU women’s organisations had easier access to come to Malta and lobby in favour of the legalisation of abortion. All in all, this dissertation would conclude whether the EU had any influence or not on the development of women’s rights.