Many single parents in the Virgin Islands have struggled for years to collect child support payments that are due by law. As a result, their children have suffered.
Now help is on the way. Last week the House of Assembly passed a well-conceived package of legislation that will reform the territory’s child support system. In doing so, legislators took a needed step toward bringing the VI more in line with international human rights standards.
Perhaps the most important part of the legislation involves enforcement: Once the laws take effect, the court will have new recourse for penalising delinquent parents.
Under the existing system, the only option is incarceration, a step that usually further delays payments for obvious reasons.
The new Child Maintenance and Access Act, by contrast, allows the court to dock delinquent parents’ paycheques and pensions; seize their belongings; and suspend their government-issued licences and permits.
The law also includes provisions designed to ensure child access for parents and other guardians, and it establishes a new gender-neutrality requirement that subjects mothers to the same rules as fathers.
Additionally, leaders passed two related pieces of legislation: one that will bring the Magistrates’ Code of Procedure in line with the CMA Act’s gender-neutrality requirement and another that will facilitate cross-border maintenance orders.
These measures, which all represent significant progress, come in the wake of other important steps for children taken by successive governments in recent years.
One was the 2007 Constitution, whose human rights chapter includes a section dedicated to children. This was followed by other legislation — including the 2011 Domestic Violence Act and the 2014 Status of Children Act — as well as recent protocols for preventing and addressing child abuse and domestic violence.
Laws alone, however, are not enough. Proper enforcement must follow, and education is also crucial.
Ultimately, the entire community is responsible for forging a society that puts children first.
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