New bill to nab delinquent dads

Eight year-old Charles Thwala has no reason not to go to school. His mother is not working, but his father is a bus driver plying the Mbabane to Pigg's Peak route in northern Swaziland. Charles lives in a mud shack in the KaKhoza shantytown outside Manzini in central Swaziland. He is eager to return to his grade-three classmates, but unable to continue his schooling because the fees his father used to provide no longer come. "I have not seen my father for a year. He used to send my mother money; now she gets nothing - I cannot go to school," Charles said. Besides school fees, the boy needs a new school uniform, shoes, stationery and other basics. "I like school: I like maths, I played ball (soccer), I miss my friends there. They are smarter than me now, they know more," he related. Assistance may come his way with a government crackdown on delinquent fathers and negligent custodians of children. Parents who do not send their children to school will be subject to a R5,000 (US $746) fine per child, according to new draft legislation that sees the Ministry of Education teaming with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to tackle school truancy. "At our ministry, we have always preached that every child deserves education," Minister of Education Constance Simelane told a press conference. The minister said the new law would address the problem of "deadbeat dads" who refuse to provide financial support to children they father out of wedlock, their children from previous marriages, or from wives they have taken in polygamous relationships but no longer desire. The Sexual Offences and Abuse Bill will replace a 1970 Maintenance Act, which was promulgated shortly after independence when the traditional polygamous family system was still strong, and orphans were virtually unknown in the country. The education ministry's plan to provide free primary education to all children will also be assisted by the new bill. "As we discover children who are not at school, enquiries will be made, and orphans and vulnerable children will be put on the list of students receiving financial aid," said a source with the education ministry. "Parents who cannot afford school fees will not be subject to the R5,000 fine - they will become known to us, and put on the list of families needing assistance."