'Deadbeat dads' get reprieve
published: Sunday | December 5, 2004

By Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

THE GOVERNMENT is yet to enact legislation that will force 'deadbeat dads' of Jamaican children to care for them.

More than a year after Public Defender Howard Hamilton announced that the Government would be looking at establishing reciprocal agreements that would make Jamaican fathers in the United States accept their responsibilities, the Government is yet to make a move to put through legislations.

In an interview with The Sunday Gleaner, Mr. Hamilton said that a format was already established last year with the United States for the arrangement to be put in place, granted that the Jamaican Government satisfied five conditions.

ESTABLISHING PATERNITY

The conditions, he said, included Jamaica's ability to establish paternity, be able to enforce child support orders, collect and distribute support payments, provide a central authority that will be accountable and that these services must be cost-free to the U.S. With these in place, he said the federal law could be passed in the U.S. to apprehend the delinquent fathers.

"All these things are already in place and it is now for the Government to finalise the arrangement," he told The Sunday Gleaner. Meanwhile, calls made to Carol Palmer, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Justice, were not returned when The Sunday Gleaner tried to find out what progress was made in pushing through the legislation.

And while the Government twiddles its thumbs, mothers are left with the burden of struggling to support these children. The Jamaica Survey of Living Conditions 2002, revealed that male-headed households continued to consume at a higher level than female-headed households.

The data showed that female-headed household average mean per capita consumption was $9,052 in 2001 and $7,794 in 2002. Meanwhile, the average spending on food consumption in female-headed households decreased from $3,983 in 2001 to $3,219.28 in 2002.

AVERAGE SPENDING DECREASES

Conversely, the average spending on food in male- headed households decreased to $3,905.15 in 2002 from $4,320 in 2001. The publication attributed this lower consumption level of female-headed households as an indication that they are more vulnerable to changes in the economic environment.

Locally, 'deadbeats dads' are also being drawn before the courts too. Reports from the Kingston and St. Andrew Family Court show that 1,407 court orders were made in 2003 for child support. For the first half of this year, January to June 2004, there were 757 court cases with only 652 court orders made.

However, a spokesperson from the Family Court pointed out that some of these court cases also included custody cases where one parent was seeking sole custody of the child while other cases were mothers seeking more money from the fathers.