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CCJ Intervention Leads to Maintenance Order: Father Obliged to Pay

2011/01/28 04:25:38 PM

In May 2011 CCJ helped a mother to obtain a maintenance order from the father of her child. A client visited coordinator Theresa Thusi (right) in early 2010 to ask for advice: the father of her children was not contributing to the maintenance of her two five year olds. She had been to court three times to speak to the maintenance officer and he had not been able to help.

Theresa went to speak to the maintenance officer, who said he was unable to assist because he could not trace the father. Soon afterwards, at a function for the provincial legislature, Theresa met members of the KwaZulu-Natal Commission for Gender Equality and asked for help. They asked her to send the documents for the case and contacted the Maintenance Office in Durban. The resulting pressure led the court in Pietermaritzburg in May 2011 to finalise a garnishee order against the father - this is a court order that allows the debtor's property, in this case his work earnings, to be appropriated. According to this, the father now pays R1100 a month for the two children.

The case illustrates how CCJ is an integral part of a network of service providers, and how these different agencies are able to complement one another.