Outstanding Child Maintenance Applications and the Crisis in Maintenance Courts Conitunues

The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) notes, with outrage, the high numbers of child maintenance applications that remain incomplete across South Africa, as well as the crisis facing maintenance courts, and systems.

The figures are a damning indictment of a maintenance system in collapse. According to the data provided by the Department of Justice, as of February 2024 there were over 170,000 incomplete child maintenance applications. Gauteng led with 65,532 incomplete applications, followed by the Western Cape with 35,584, and the North West with 21,477. Shockingly, Gauteng alone accounted for 38% of all outstanding child maintenance matters in the country.

This represents the nature of the backlogs that exist with the maintenance system, as well as a huge denial of justice. These figures represent tens of thousands of children being deprived of their legal right to financial support and stability from both parents. They represent guardians who are forced to navigate a hostile, bureaucratic, and indifferent court system, often without any assistance, while trying to provide for their children on their own.

This institutional failure is nothing short of violence against the most vulnerable in our society. Maintenance courts continue to be overwhelmed, under-resourced, and incapable of processing even the most urgent cases with dignity or efficiency. Single mothers, who head 44.1% of South African households, bear the brunt of this dysfunction, and their children pay the ultimate price through interrupted schooling, hunger, housing instability, and a loss of security.

While the EFF welcomed the policy initiative introduced last year to allow credit bureaus to blacklist maintenance defaulters, we warned that no legal reform will be effective without a functional system to support it. The reality exposed by these statistics confirms our warnings: the child maintenance system remains structurally broken.

The EFF, therefore, calls for an immediate audit and fast-tracking of all incomplete cases; the appointment of more magistrates and maintenance officers to address the severe capacity crisis in our courts; the simplification of the application and follow-up process; and the creation of specialised support desks for guardians navigating the system.

The EFF will continue to demand a child maintenance system that is accessible, responsive, and just. A system that does not leave women and children to struggle while the state sleeps. We will not rest until every child receives the support they are owed and every negligent parent is held accountable.

The EFF has expressed solidarity with various social movements and labor unions.

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