Time up for truant dads
THE government wants to implement a policy that will force fathers to play a more prominent role in the upbringing of their children.
DADDY'S GIRL: A father neatens his daughter, who is about to go to school for the first time in her life. Photo: LEBOHANG MASHILOANEThis is contained in the Green Paper on Families, which was released for public comment by Social Development Deputy Minister Maria Ntuli.
The paper advocates for family life in the form of marriage, strengthening foster care, gender equality and gender sensitive policies for men and women, even in the workplace.
Existing programmes focusing on youth development, child protection and domestic violence would also be beefed up.
To support the needy and most vulnerable families, the paper suggests that government should first identify the problems in those families, provide what is needed - be it a job or a home - and coordinate the various agencies available to help.
The paper states that over the years, a significant burden has been placed on women as sole care-givers as a result of absent fathers while some are migrant labourers, leaving women to play a double role of parenting.
In what would be the first of its kind in Africa, the government has put forward guidelines and strategies on how to support these families in order to flourish.
Ntuli believes women should no longer carry the burden alone, fathers should play a care-giving role too. She said the promotion of family life, through father-sensitive policies like statutory paternal leave and flexible working hours, among other interventions, would make society catalysts of national development.
The research, conducted by the Department of Social Development, highlights that social ills like poverty and crime in the country are a result of either weak family systems or non-existent families where children fend for themselves.
Various departments would be roped in to facilitate the implementation of the paper, for example, the use of sports and recreation in the fight against anti-social behaviour, crime and juvenile delinquency.
The paper urges South Africans to voice their views on how to eliminate all conditions eroding family life, like poverty, inequality, unemployment, HIV-Aids and child abuse.
- nhlabathih@sowetan.co.za
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Comments
JajazQueen
The black family structure needs all the help it can get. Good move. There should be incentives for marriage as well. These kids need to get married instead of this vat n sit sh!t. And this double standard on lobola should be investigated. Originally black people had no engagements, no promises to marry, they just married finish and klaar. Now men are taking advantage of this ambiguity and keep women hanging on lobola treating it as a promise to marry. Paying lobola is marriage whether there's a celebration or not.Report Abuse
TheDictator
The government is really running out of options,policy after policy after policy.You cant force anybody to be a responsible father.First the government destroyed the society (and families) by passing laws which are against our culture,majority faith and traditions(such were working well by the way).
Secondly they preached rights to women and kids and forgetting to teach them the responsibility that goes along with the rights.
Thirdly they created an environment to be unbearable for men to live,in the name of women empowerment.
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tpaz
@JajazQueen.....good points!Married men to get grants......
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Papage
We also need to have a policy to stop women from opening their legs to all men, there are women with five kids from different fathers, what is wrong with them?Report Abuse
MommaC
How about simply encouraging women to keep their legs together and not go for the speerm donor option?Throughout nature, the females chose the BEST male to breed with. Whats with humans that think that some ny0pe addict is suddenly going to become a model father?
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Mosquer
PapageWe also need to have a policy to stop women from opening their legs to all men, there are women with five kids from different fathers, what is wrong with them?
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Good one
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JajazQueen
@PapageWe also need to have a policy to stop women from opening their legs to all men, there are women with five kids from different fathers, what is wrong with them?
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We could look at the reasons why that happens....where do these men disappear to after fathering their first child with the woman? Leaving these women to look for another man to spawn their next child. People are bed hoppers both men and women. It's just that women often carry the evidence of sex by being pregnant and men do not.
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skhokho21
JajazQueenAnd this double standard on lobola should be investigated. Originally black people had no engagements, no promises to marry, they just married finish and klaar. Now men are taking advantage of this ambiguity and keep women hanging on lobola treating it as a promise to marry. Paying lobola is marriage whether there's a celebration or not.
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I disagree with you, paying lobola is not marriage, its only an engagement/intention to get married or asking the parents of your future w i f e for a permission to marry her. Once you pay over 50% of the required lobola, then her father will give you a go ahead to get married but you still liable for the outstanding debt. Once you sign that marriage certificate & pronounced husband & w i f e, only then you can say you married in the eyes of the RSA law.
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BaleliM
This is not going to work. They have dismally failed to effectively implement child support and they think they can force these good for nothing men that are abandoning their kids and responsibility?Get an example of how the USA works on paying maintenance. You aint getting paid by anyone before they deduct maintenance!
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tpaz
@JajazQueen...men don't disappear....we chase them away....sometimes we cheat for money to feed the kids after our wrong choices.Report Abuse
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