[...] Bajan Dream Diary: Are Barbados’ child support and paternity laws skewed against men? [...]

Hmmm…

Barbadian magistrates were on record as saying that in most cases where a man asks for a paternity test in matters of child maintenance, it is usually a delaying tactic and the tests results usually reveal that the men indeed are the fathers. This was reported in the Nation newspaper, do check it out.

Many maintenance orders are woefully inadequate and difficult to collect.

Let’s go back to registration of a birth. A single woman cannot register the name of the father on a child’s birth certificate the father must do that in person. It’s erroneous to portray men as being at the mercy of mercenary women who regularly outfit them with jackets for the sheer humiliation of appearing in the Magistrate’s court, getting awarded the odd $50 per week and having it not been paid in after they’ve waited in line to collect it.

The Maintenance Act may very well need revamping and some men may indeed feel that justice has not been served but MESA tells a one-sided, misleading tale. One that no thinking person could possibly endorse.

Thanks for the heads up on that Annual Report.

Hi Eemanee – Thanks for your comment. I hope that I got my point across that I did not endorse MESA’s position in full, and I fully got the underlying presumption that ‘[most] women put jackets on men’, but my agreement was with the maintenance act and responsibility for paternity test payment.

Be it as it may that men need to sign their name on the child’s birth certificate, I’ve personally come across cases where the child’s paternity is called into question by the father, e.g. after revelations of infidelity by his partner, etc.

That doesn’t represent a delaying tactic, and while statistically it may be true that most men who request tests do turn out to be the child’s father, I am not sure it was wise for magistrates to go on record basically admitting their preconceptions like that.

As I said, MESA puts a spin on everything and I am far from a fan, but if there are even 2 or 3 men in a situation where they’re being denied the right to know a child’s paternity – that’s too many.

Yikes! Look who’s agreeing with Kathy.

I agree with eemanee. I know nothing of MESA and the case in Barbados, but I can’t se a woman honestly wanting a dead beat father around so much that she wuld deny him all avenues to know the child is his.

And $50 per week? Is that seriously considered ‘maitennance’?

help me out. is there something wrong with the article? or is this more of a ‘how dare men say even 1 woman can be menacing and maniacal’? disclaimer: i am happily married to a woman i adore, but was with menacing and maniacal women before, ONE of whom actually did try to give me a lovely jacket before admitting it was fathered by my best friend. i digress. also, i’m a guy and i find mesa is full of sh!t, except on this particular issue.

I think that only the child’s real father should pay child support, and everyone must have the right to choose whether they want to take the test!

I find it really interesting that when women do wrong, other women are quick to say that “It must have been a man’s fault to make her do such-and-such”. Just as in the case of a man, anytime a woman steps out of a relationship, they are wrong.

If you think the current man/woman is doing you wrong, leave. Simple, yet effective. Would you stand for your husband bringing home a child from his outside woman? And please don’t tell me it happened in the past. Different times, different society. And “jacket babies” were in full swing then too.

All I am saying is this – if there is a paternity test to be had, both should pay. If you say no, and the man requested the paternity test, let him pay, and if he is not the father, let him be reimbursed. If he is the father, and it is suspected that he is using a “delay tactic”, then have him pay court costs and lawyer fees as well. These tend to be hefty, and persons would rather not bear them.

As for a man having to pay support by force of law for a child that is not his, how is this fair? IF the man decides that he wants to because he has grown to love the child, then this should be his prerogative. Don’t make a man have to work and support a child that is not his, while some deadbeat is out there not doing his fatherly duties. Also, using the argument that it in the “best interest of the child” is also a lame excuse. The best interest of the child is to know whom its real father is, and who by rights should be supporting him/her.

Woodslave you make a good point but boy you didn’t read that if a woman declines the paternity test, there can be none at all?

Steven B.

I did read it. And it is a shame that men (or women if it was a law concerning them) can be held to ransom like that. Not only must justice be served, but it must appear to be served. Nuff said.

This is a very complex thing:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1144414531354

I think this is an issue of “father” being described as “money” for all intents and purposes since custody is almost always one-sided.
From a male perspective divorce is one thing: you lose half of everything plus your children and then you have to pay for it.
The question is: why has the role of the father become simply one of economics in this “enlightened” age?

(The other thing is; How long can a simple paternity test “delay” a custody battle? I cannot buy that argument.)

I am a Bermudian, who was married to a Bajan for nine years, he left Bermuda to avoid paying child support I have breast cancer and my child has severe asthma, I do not work and we are literally suffering. My exhusband has property and a home there I would love any kind of help I can get. My exhusband knows I am not financially able to come after him, he lives in a recent renovated home and is remarried and goes on with his life as if his daughter does not exist. I wish him all the best in his new life I do not care that he is remarried nor how he lives I JUST WANT SUPPORT….Fathers stop….take care of your children they are our future.

Darlene I know your ex husband and I will say while there are two sides to every story your ex husband is an idiot. While he was married to you he ignored the children that he left back in Barbados, so your daughter is now being treated the same way..

HEAVEN: When I married my ex he was living in Bermuda, I believe his son was a teenager and his daughter I believe five years old. He ignored his kids the day he left Barbados to come to Bermuda to be with a woman…..I learned of these kids after the fact, did I agree with him being a deadbeat father of cause not I am a mother and was a mother before I married him…So yes my daughter is suffering as I am sure his other kids did, however one day he will be accountable for his actions I hope and pray I am still around…. I am presently trying to find him and when I do I will make sure he takes care of his responsibilities…however he keeps evading the authorities…..

Darlene…last time I checked he was in Cayman Islands but i am not sure if he is still there.

There is an inherent bias against men in the laws relating to paternity and children. And yes, there are men who ignore their children and who should be made to face consequences, however there are also cases of women with 4 children from 6 men. In fact this scenario is quite common.

A magistrate should judge the case before him or her on its merits, to make a blanket generalisation about paternity tests is highly inappropriate. What is wrong with a man wanting to be sure that he is about to take on a lifetime committment that is actually his? From the reaction of some to this article it would seem that women NEVER have sex with more than one man in a menstrual cycle.

Further, in the cases where heaven forbid a father should actually want custody of the child, God help him! If the mother wants them there is no way in heaven or earth that the father will get them, short of the mother being a drug dealing serial killer (and sometimes not even then)

Is the law always perfect? No there are several cases where it is blatantly biassed against women (have a look at how citizenship applies if a Bajan woman marries a foreigner, as opposed to a Bajan man marrying a foreigner) However women have a very organised lobby for women’s rights and women’s issues. (as they well should) MESA is perhaps not perfect, however it is in the Barbadian case the first organised voice to attempt to address gender issues that relate to men. It is ironic that the most hostile response to their comments are from those who most demand an ear for their own issues.