Before politics Before entering politics, Dalli worked as a model and actress. At 17, Dalli won Miss Malta, and represented the country at
Miss World 1979. She subsequently appeared in the 1985 movie
Final Justice as a policewoman who partners with the protagonist. After the failure of the film, she left acting and entered politics, working with Labour Party leader
Dom Mintoff.
Parliamentary Secretary In 1996, Dalli was elected to the
Parliament of Malta and appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Women's Rights in the Office of the Prime Minister. She was re-elected during the five subsequent elections, making her the second most elected
woman in Maltese political history. During her two-year tenure, she put forwards a
Childcare Bill to provide for regulations of childcare services both in the public and the private sector, and took care of the drafting of the
Gender Equality Bill with the assistance of the
United Nations Development Programme. Dalli also launched Malta's first white paper on domestic violence.
Minister During the
2013–2017 legislature, Dr Dalli was Minister for Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties. Under her direction, the Maltese Government introduced several laws and policies to strengthen the equality and human rights framework, including a
Civil Unions Act as well as the widening of the anti-discrimination protections in the Maltese constitution to cover the grounds of gender identity and sexual orientation. In April 2015, she presented a law establishing wide-ranging rights for
transgender and intersex people. The
Gender Identity Gender Expression and Sex Characteristics Act provides for a right to gender identity and the recognition of one's self-determined gender on official documents, and recognises a right to bodily integrity and physical autonomy. During the same legislature, Dalli introduced a national maternity leave fund to which all employers contribute regardless of the gender of their employees, in order to protect women against discrimination during the recruitment process. 's instrument of
accession to
OP-CEDAW at the
UN Headquarters in March 2019 In 2015, Helena Dalli led the process for the establishment of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, which the UN now commemorates annually on 11 February. Dalli was also instrumental for the restructuring of the Malta Medicines Authority. Dalli was re-elected from two districts in the
2017 general election. At the start of the new session, she presented to Parliament a Bill to introduce marriage equality (
same-sex marriage). Dalli's work in the equality sector led Malta to become the country affording the best legal protection and equality for LGBTIQ people. As a result, Malta has retained the top spot of the
ILGA-Europe country index for four consecutive years. During both terms as a Minister, Dalli worked to enhance Malta's human rights and equality structures and their independence, as well as dialogue with civil society and social partners. In view of this, she set up a Human Rights and Equality Directorate that is responsible for Government policy on gender equality and gender mainstreaming, LGBTIQ equality, and migrant integration and anti-racism. She also set up an LGBTIQ Consultative Council, a Consultative Council for Women's Rights and a Forum on Integration Affairs. Following a long and multi-step consultation process, she presented an
Equality Bill and a
Human Rights and Equality Commission Bill that aim to instil the highest standards in terms of anti-discrimination and equality in all spheres of life, and the setting up of an independent national human rights institution in line with the
Paris Principles of the
United Nations and
European Union equality directives. Following the
2019 European elections, Dalli was nominated by the government of Prime Minister Muscat as Malta's candidate for the subsequent
European Commission.
Commissioner In 2019, Dalli was made the European Commissioner for
Equality in the
von der Leyen Commission. Her
Portfolio included leading on EU implementation of the
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, developing a European 'gender strategy' to further improve
women's rights by improving pay transparency and ensuring implementation of the Women on Boards Directive, ensuring implementation of the
Work-Life Balance Directive, exploring the addition of 'violence against women' to the list of EU crimes and supporting EU accession to the Istanbul Convention. In November 2021, Dalli launched internal EU guidelines for
inclusive language, including saying "holiday season" instead of Christmas, avoiding gendered phrases such as "ladies and gentlemen" (eg "Dear All"), and to use names such as "Malika and Julio" for fictional people rather than "Maria and John". The guidelines were criticised by politicians including
Antonio Tajani of
Forza Italia and former
Democratic Party Prime Minister of Italy Matteo Renzi, and were eventually withdrawn.
Pope Francis compared the measures to anti-Christian dictatorships in revolutionary France, Nazi Germany and the communist world. In the same month, French ministers
Marlène Schiappa and
Clément Beaune criticised Dalli for meeting representatives of
FEMYSO France considers to be linked to the
Muslim Brotherhood.
Academia Dalli holds a PhD in Political Sociology from the
University of Nottingham, and lectures in Economic and Political Sociology, Public Policy, and Sociology of Law at the
University of Malta. == Recognition ==