No Boundaries For Child Support

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Melissa Edwards/BVI Platinum News
Hon. Ronnie Skelton, Health and Social Development Minister

(PLTM) - The act of requesting maintenance for a child will be made much easier for lone parents and guardians living in the Territory or abroad. As explained by the Minister of Health and Social Development, Hon. Ronnie Skelton, the bill entitled “Maintenance Orders, Facilities for Enforcement Act 2016” will strongly enforce child maintenance orders beyond national boundaries. The bill, which will support and reinforce the clauses outlined in the Child Maintenance and Access Act 2016, was passed yesterday, March 21 in the House of Assembly. Explaining the reasoning behind such a bill, the Minister noted that the Social Development Department continues to receive numerous requests from local residents, who are seeking assistance to secure maintenance from parents who have left the Territory. He noted that the department also receives requests from other countries for their intervention in matters to collect payments from parents, mostly fathers, who have migrated to the Virgin Islands. “In some cases, both parents may have migrated and left their child in the custody of a local caregiver, who then seeks to secure maintenance from the child’s parents,” Minister Skelton added. He noted that the bill modernizes the legal framework for persons in the Virgin Islands and other jurisdictions to easily make requests for child maintenance. “It’s the government’s role to take all appropriate measures to secure the recovery of maintenance for a child from the parents or any other person who has financial responsibility to the child, both within the jurisdiction and abroad.” Minister of Education and Culture, Hon. Myron Walwyn also commented on the bill, noting that it is relevant in the Virgin Islands and, “There is such fluidity where a great cross section of persons who come to the BVI to live and work, they form families or get children while they are here, and then they go overseas, and in many situations they leave without their child.” He added, “In many instances fathers leave the country and the mothers are left here alone to care for the child, and so this gives extra territorial powers to certain legal hoops that one must go through, but its intentions are certainly to ensure that the parent gets maintenance for the child.” The House also passed an amendment to the Magistrates Code of Procedure, to provide full support and strength to the Child Maintenance and Access Act 2016. Minister Skelton noted that the amendment will complete the package of legislations to address the issue of child maintenance in the Virgin Islands.

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