JAIL FOR PAPGELD DODGERS NOT IDEAL

HARSH prison sentences for fathers who default on maintenance will do more harm to their families than good.

This is just one of the submissions that parliament’s portfolio committee on justice and correctional services must consider when they deliberate on the Maintenance Amendment Bill this week.

The public hearings on the bill, which took place last month, dealt with proposed changes to the law.

These changes include that maintenance matters must be concluded speedily and that persons who fail to make a maintenance payments can face a penalty of a fine or jail time up to three years.

Proposed changes also seek to hold persons who “wilfully interrupt proceedings” or interrupt the work of a maintenance investigator accountable through a fine or jail time. They also include that the court may direct electronic service providers to provide contact information of persons involved in the matter.

But organisations that made submissions to the committee have strongly opposed lengthy prison sentences.

Wessel van den Berg of Sonke Gender Justice said in a submission to the committee that harsh penalties will have “devastating effects” on those fathers who do not have the financial means to pay maintenance.

He said jail time would result in “absent parenthood”.

According to research, this is a problem in South Africa, where one out of two fathers is absent in their child’s life, he said.

Fathers will be unable to provide “emotional and day-to-day support” to their children, he added.

Instead of prison time, Van den Berg suggested that penalties such as withholding passports, visas, driver's licences or cutting off membership of professional bodies should be the alternative.

At the weekend, member of the committee James Selfe said imprisonment would cause problems for prisons, which are already “overcrowded and underresourced”.

Selfe said most people emerge from prison “more criminalised”.