Suzan Chala
The Johannesburg Maintenance Court is always crowded with women claiming child support from the fathers of their children. However, it would be incorrect to assume that the men sitting on the benches and crowding the narrow passages are all defendants.
There is an increasing number of single men claiming maintenance from women. These are men who have been granted legal custody of the children by courts during divorces or voluntarily by the mothers.
According to prosecutors at the court, in two out of 10 cases of maintenance, fathers are the claimants.
“These days we see more fathers coming to claim maintenance. They are still fewer than women but their number is growing,” explains a prosecutor rushing to his office to solve another maintenance dispute.
Catching everyone’s attention was the thunder of a smack. A woman uncontrollable is dragged into an office by a police officer, who irritably exclaims, “Agh! It’s you again.”
Another policeman explains: “She voluntarily gave him custody of the children 10 years ago after they were divorced, now she hits him because he wants to maintain them.”
Jacob Shikwambana of Chiawelo, who has been sitting in the passage for hours, has also come to seek help from the court. Shikwambana’s wife left him with their two children, a seven-year-old and 14-year-old. She kept their one-year-old.
“One Friday afternoon when I came back from a job-hunting trip, she was gone. She had indicated that morning that she would not live with me because I was unemployed, but I didn’t think she would do it,” Shikwambana explains. He lost his job in 1999 and has since been unemployed.
Shikwambana’s attempts to contact his wife who now lives in Tzaneen have been unsuccessful. She has been summoned to the maintenance court but never showed up.
“I understand that she’s not working, but she should at least take some responsibility, even if it’s looking after the children so I can go jobhunting. I can’t leave early in the morning before they go to school and I have to come back early in the afternoon to cook for them,” he continues.
Shikwambana and his children are supported by his pensioner mother and his brother, who has his own family to support.
“They share the cost of rent, electricity, food and school fees and when I have my part-time jobs I also contribute,” he says.
Prosecutors and maintenance officers, who asked not to be named, describe some of the cases.
“Last week there was a ruling that a woman should pay R500 maintenance for her two children. She voluntarily gave custody to her former husband after their divorce in 1998 to pursue her career,” a maintenance officer says.
“She is a teacher and earns half her ex-husband’s salary but that is not the point the point is, she has children and it is the duty of this court to look after their best interests. That man was not coping financially and as a parent she should play her role too.”
A female prosecutor explains how women refusing to pay maintenance abuse them. “After a ruling they usually swear at us, they accuse us of sleeping with their ex-husbands and call us names. They actually believe that because they are women they can get away with not paying maintenance, and the sad thing is that most single fathers believe that too.”
According to Paul Setsetse, representative for the Department of Justice, fewer men than women claim maintenance. Setsetse says most childminders are still women and that most single fathers are “too proud to claim maintenance”.
Richard Sibiya* (35), a police officer stationed at the maintenance court, was divorced in 1995 and has since been living alone with his two children.
He would not claim maintenance because he did not want to “force” the mother of his children to take responsibility. “She knows she has children, and if she chooses to ignore that so be it,” he says.
Sibiya says his former wife has not contacted their children since the day she left them in 1995. Legal custody of the children had not been decided by a court, but Sibiya doubts if she would fight for it.
“She obviously does not care about them,” he says.
Louise Slabbert, CEO of African Self Help Association a group of 40 day-care centres in Soweto says the increasing number of single fathers has led to the establishment of family enrichment programmes.
“Single parenthood is very difficult for any parent but more so for fathers as they do not have all the necessary skills,” she says.
* Not his real name
@Men keep killing their partners
Glenda Daniels
Ntombikono Mkathini (21) was sexually assaulted, burned, shot and killed this month. Her naked body was then dumped in a supermarket trolley and left outside her best friend’s house in Alexandra in the middle of the night.
Her boyfriend, who was seen parking the trolley, has been arrested on a charge of murder. Their relationship was apparently a violent one. Recently Mkathini laid a charge of rape against him, but this was dropped.
Every six days one woman is killed by her partner, according to a femicide research project by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR).
Gender bodies and activists will convene nextend week at a gender summit in Johannesburg organised by the Commission for Gender Equality, to find strategies to address endemic sexism, violence against women, and HIV/Aids and its impact on women, among other crucial issues.
Mkathini’s sister, Nolwazi Mkathini, says her sister had been trying to leave her boyfriend for the past month, because “she didn’t want him and because he was violent”.
“He was always hitting her. But he kept following her around. He raped her on the streets and she laid a charge of rape against him. But his mother made her drop the charge, I think.”
Inspector Harry Macheke confirmed that the man was arrested and charged with murder, and was still in custody. He also confirmed that the case of rape had been dropped by Mkathini.
A CSVR study at three courts in Gauteng over five years found 146 males killed their partners, compared to 43 women killing their partners. Men who kill their partners outnumber women by about four to one.
The study also shows that “while most women kill under circumstances in which they are abused, the same is not true for male perpetrators, at least a third of whom have abused their female partner before killing her”.
Head of the Gender Research Project at the CSVR Lisa Vetten says Mka-thini’s case highlights the risks women face when they end relationships.
“The other high-risk group is very jealous or possessive men. Any family member, social worker, police officer or prosecutor assisting a woman wanting to leave an abusive partner should be alert to this danger and take measures to ensure the woman’s safety.”
Vetten adds that some psychologist reports say that a man suffers an “ego disintegration” when a woman leaves, “which raises questions. Why is the stability of some men’s egos so dependent upon having a woman?”
The gender summit will also examine the impact of culture on women.
“If there is a case of conflict between gender equality and cultural practices, then equality will take have to take precedence,” says the acting head of the Gender Research Project at the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (Cals), Likhapha Mbatha.
Cals is planning a seminar on the topic of customary marriage and gender equality next week.
The concepts of culture and gender equality are not mutually exclusive, Mbatha argues.
She says that the exclusion of women through the practice of patriarchy cannot be based on culture if culture is man-made.
“Culture can and must be transformed to accommodate women and other marginalised groups.”