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The paper seeks to share the money laundering threats that ensue from current patterns in international criminal activity and the anti‐money laundering compliance work that is put up at the Malta Stock Exchange (MSE).

The paper sets out by sketching the general demographic and economic background of Malta as a small jurisdiction and member state of the European Union since 1 May 2004. It provides a view of the problem posed by the recently pronounced phenomenon of irregular migration and illegal immigration into Malta as well as a general overview of the AML regime that applies under Maltese law. The paper then dwells on the AML compliance function that the MSE pursues while discussing the procedures that are put in place to detect, monitor and eventually report any suspicious dealing on the securities market.

The paper highlights practical and concrete procedures of prevention of money laundering in the securities market and the synergy that results from effective cooperation between the securities markets and investigative and law enforcement agencies or judicial organs.

Any effective domestic and international AML strategy will, however, always rely on mutual cooperation governance arrangements and the good reputation of market players as a prerequisite for the extensive intelligence necessary to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.

The paper reports on the way small securities markets could efficiently and effectively involve trading procedures and clearance and settlement facilities in the ongoing fight against money laundering and terrorist financing.

Malta is a small, densely populated, and dominantly Catholic island republic not too far off the North-African coast. Before 2002, Malta never had to deal with many irregular immigrants. Nevertheless, negative stigmas toward “southerners” were pre-existent and seemed to have been around for centuries. This stigmatization was caused by a historical identification of the self of Maltese citizens as Christian Europeans. By 2002, irregular migration patterns changed and thousands of African irregular immigrants started arriving by boat every year. Keeping in mind the smallness of the island, this had a considerable impact on its ethnographic landscape. Pre-existing stigmas strongly persisted, additional stigmas were created, and many supposed inconveniences were fabricated by the Maltese citizenry. The title “outsiders as invaders” is quoted from an interview with a Maltese expert on irregular migration. This brings attention to the fact that stigmatized persons who are living in Malta are still regularly demonized and seen as “the others” by mainstream society. Even today barely any effort is made by Maltese society, institutions, or even its government to support integration and acceptance of non-European outsiders.

Begins by putting Malta into perspective as one of the ten states that joined the European Union in 2004 and the one with the smallest area; its geographical position at the crossroads of the Mediterranean Sea makes it a target for drugs dealing, smuggling and illegal immigration. Describes the Malta Stock Exchange, and its role in anti‐money laundering. Outlines the Prevention of Money Laundering Act and the work of the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU), a government agency charged with combating money laundering; among its duties of managing relevant information, it receives reports of suspicious money laundering transactions. Indicates the international affiliations of the FIAU with similar bodies. Concludes that Malta has acted swiftly in combating terrorist financing and money laundering.

The migration of thousands of people who, every year escape conflict, repression and poor economic stability in their home country, attempt the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe. While some do make it, questions are being posed on the effectivity of the European Union to deal with migration and explore ways of integrating migrants into society, in particular through education. The need to address the educational development of migrant learners’ calls for contextualized school leadership processes aimed at spurring teachers to hone the cultural capital brought by migrant learners in their classrooms. The authors argue in favour of culturally responsive leadership processes which (1) endorse schools as influential on society and community development, (2) detach from a ‘one-size-fits-all philosophy’ of leadership, (3) believe in the cultural capital of migrant students, (4) embrace changes in leadership styles brought about by different cultural philosophies, (5) successfully transmit to teachers that learning cannot be placed in a monocultural context and (6) advocate towards the employment of teachers whose culture reflects the cultural composition of students in their school. This chapter aims to explore what Malta, a small island state, is doing to address this mammoth task in a context fraught with uncertainty and anxiety.

In this volume we will present nine articles from the third conference of the European SSSI which was held on July 4–6 in Rotterdam in 2012. They come from a diverse range of countries such as Poland, Sweden, The Netherlands, and Germany. This collection shows a wide variety of qualitative methods and themes, such as sex-work in Poland, urban public places in the Netherlands, dancing during lunch break in Sweden, self-change in Papua New Guinea, immigration in Malta and the body online. When we look at the studies in this volume, it becomes clear that European scholars have been inspired by the SI tradition in various ways, which will be discussed briefly in this introduction.

This paper aims to establish the existence and enforceability of State responsibility for human trafficking, making special reference to children and Malta. Given that trafficking has been described by the European Court of Human Rights as a form of modern slavery, the paper's hypothesis is that the State has a responsibility to ensure that all possible steps are taken to combat the practice and to protect possible victims.

The paper is divided into three parts: the first part makes a concise review of the international criteria applied in response to human trafficking, the second part examines the pertaining situation relating to human trafficking in Malta and the final part makes an analysis of the recent judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia.

The paper demonstrates that the affirmation of State responsibility to combat human trafficking is enforceable, with reference to the Rantsev judgement which clearly attributes a positive obligation on States under Article 4. It also highlights the difficulty in tracing judgments related to human trafficking as evidenced by the review of the Maltese position, although this appears to be an issue common to a number of States which indiscriminately put together all cases for trafficking (drug trafficking and human trafficking).

The paper only uses first‐hand sources and Maltese judgements are supplemented with original research into cases as reported in the press. The third part of the work analyses the recent judgement of the European Court of Human Rights in Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia (2010), speculating as to its impact on all member states of the Council of Europe, including Malta.

The purpose of this paper was to conduct a legal realist assessment of women’s situation in European immigration detention which focuses on relevant international and European human rights instruments applicable to conditions and health rights in detention settings, academic literature and relevant European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) jurisprudence since 2010.

In spite of the United Nations human rights frameworks and European Union (EU) standards, conditions in European immigration detention settings continue to pose a health risk to those detained. Migrant health rights when detained are intertwined with the right not to be subjected to arbitrary detention, detention in conditions compatible for respect for human dignity and right to medical assistance. Migrant women are particularly vulnerable requiring special consideration (pregnant and lactating women; single women travelling alone or with children; adolescent girls; early-married children, including with newborn infants) in immigration detention settings.

The situation of women in immigration detention is patchy in EU policy, academic literature and ECtHR jurisprudence. Where referred to, they are at best confined to their positionality as pregnant women or as mothers, with their unique gendered health needs ill-resourced. ECtHR jurisprudence is largely from male applicants. Where women are applicants, cases centre on dire conditions of detention, extreme vulnerability of children accompanying their mother and arbitrary or unlawful detention of these women (with child).

Concerns have been raised by the European Parliament around immigration detention of women including those travelling with their children. There is a continued failure to maintain minimum and equivalent standards of care for women in European immigration detention settings.

The theoretical contribution provided by the transitional theories has fundamentally helped develop a better understanding of the migration process, by showing how migration is interacting with other processes of development. They show that along with development, emigration is following an upside down ‘U’ shaped pattern, being overreached by immigration, while the region changes its migration profile from emigration to immigration. This was the case for the southern European states, which followed a rapid migration transition during the second half of the twentieth century. After large emigration to Western and Northern Europe, these managed to attract large immigration flows from the less developed countries in Africa and Latin America, but also from Eastern Europe after the fall of communist regimes. This chapter aims to test whether Eastern Europe is heading to the same migration transition pattern as the South and change their current status of net migration provider. Thus, the impact of the migration transition drivers in explaining net migration balance is analysed using a panel data for the 2000–2013 period. As a country can encompass both emigration and immigration regions, the current analysis is carried out at European Union (EU) regional level data (NUTS II), while controlling for the regional specifics and unobserved time effects. Overall, most of the factors which led to the migration shift, from emigration to immigration, in Southern Europe were proven to be fundamental at EU regional level as well. Migration flows were shown to be more sensitive to unemployment, urbanisation, segmentation of the labour market and active population share in the eastern as compared to the southern European regions. Nevertheless, accessing the transition drivers evolution during 2011–2013 period, eastern regions are still highly unattractive and their chances for becoming destination regions are currently at low levels.

This qualitative study seeks to explore the grounded realities of live-in care workers in Malta. The growing economic affluence in Malta, coupled by an ageing population and the lowest fertility rate in the European Union, is resulting in a greater demand for live-in care givers, particularly from the Philippines. Reinforced through public policy wherein families who employ a qualified live-in carer are benefiting from government subsidy to ease burden on the state’s residential homes, Malta appears to be moving from a passive to a more active international recruitment of domestic migrant workers. This inquiry provides an evidence-based contribution to the appeal of the European Economic and Social Committee of the EU calling for more research about the rights of live-in care workers in Europe which has long remained almost invisible to EU and Member State policymakers. The majority of the findings reflect some of the concerns that have already been identified in international literature, like higher levels of precariousness, contractual agreements not being honoured, psychological obligations, fraudulent agents and the lack of separation between work and personal life. Other findings have endogenous characteristics that are closely linked to the island state of Malta, namely its safe environment, Catholic culture, bilingual coexistence of Maltese and English and the competitive nature of Filipino community groups that may discourage further social engagement. The chapter concludes with brief policy suggestions to trigger improvements in the wellbeing and dignity of migrant carers.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse why Malta continues to show the highest level of turnout for European Parliament (EP) elections in a country where voting is not obligatory. By analysing the Maltese EP elections from 2004 to 2019, the paper seeks to understand why the Maltese engage with a second order election to the degree that they do.

The paper is a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods, first assessing the context of the 2019 elections, the historical trends and then the factors that help explain why the Maltese continue to engage with EP elections.

The paper finds that the Maltese political system, highly polarised and dominated by two parties, primarily galvanises people to engage with elections, that it is more about party leadership than actual engagement with Europe and that second order elections in Malta are often run as first order elections.

This paper is the only systematic evaluation of the 2019 EP elections in Malta, discusses categorically that EP elections are rarely about Europe while also showing clearly that political parties can make second-order elections appear as first-order elections should the stakes be high enough.