Low-income earners at pains to fork out child maintenance – Labour MP

People on the minimum wage who are separated from their spouses often find themselves having to fork out child maintenance from their miserly earnings to the severe detriment of their own lives, Labour MP Deborah Schembri warned.

“The rights of the people giving maintenance must be observed as well,” Schembri said in her parliamentary adjournment. “Those on the minimum wage are in a very difficult situation whereby they can hardly afford to pay their rent or buy food for themselves.”

She also warned about separated people on the other side of the scale- those who earn enough money to provide a high level of maintenance to their children, but who don’t declare their earnings fully so as to avoid paying maintenance.

“The right to maintenance is not about the right of the parent, but the right of the child,” Schembri said. “People, most often husbands, who get out of paying maintenance are doing so at the detriment of their own children who will have to get used to life at a lower quality than what they were used to prior to their parents’ separation.”

She also pointed out that many women don’t know how much their husbands truly earn, so when the time comes to discuss maintenance, they will not even know that their husbands are hiding their earnings.

 “The time has come to look at how we can change family and maintenance laws,” Schembri said.