prison not the answer
RETIRED Magistrate of the Juvenile Court Faith Marshall-Harris is recommending that a child support collection agency be established on the island.
She believes that such an agency would be used to supervise collection and payment of arrears and pursue defaulters who would then be brought back to Court for sanction, as is practised in many countries.
According to Marshall-Harris, “There should also be provision for payment by attachment orders where parents are employed. Attachment orders are orders where the money is deducted at source by the employer and forwarded to the Court before it is received by the employee.”
She further explained that at the moment the Crown Proceedings Act provides that the wages and salaries paid by the Crown to public servants cannot be attached. “Since public servants are roughly ten percent of the Barbados workforce, I recommend that this section is repealed so that all wages or salaries can be attached, if necessary,” she advised.
The consultant while noting that there are many defaulters in the system, believes that prison is not the solution to this problem.
“Imprisonment for non-payment of child support is counterproductive and should be discontinued as a means of sanction. The children still do not get supported if the father has gone to prison, or if he loses his job and the prison term does not extinguish the debt. Other ways must be found,” she advised.
“For example, if persons refuse to pay child support and are severely in arrears, then their driver’s or road traffic licence could be suspended, provided they are not taxi or ZR drivers or other persons whose livelihood depend on their ability to drive a vehicle. Deductions from NIS benefits, and income tax refunds could be made; surrender or suspension of passports or use of community service orders. Distress could be another means of recovery whereby the big screen or plasma television is seized and the money recovered that way,” she suggested.
She explained that a Child Support Fund which can be ordered by a judicial officer where there is need. “This would operate like a revolving Fund to cover all children whose parents are temporarily unable to comply with maintenance orders through unemployment or illness. This should be a facility that can be utilized by judicial officers in deserving cases. This is in step with Article 27 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which says that the State should assist where there is a need for the child to be maintained,”she said. (JH)
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