Gender analysis of child support in the Caribbean: legal, socioeconomic and cultural issues for consideration

• Author: Roberta Clarke - Tracey Robinson - Jacqueline Sealy-Burke
• Pages: 95-105

95

Part II: Towards Gender Equality

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9. Gender analysis of child support in the

Caribbean: legal, socio-economic and

cultural issues for consideration

Roberta Clarke, Tracey Robinson and

Jacqueline Sealy-Burke

This chapter vividly highlights the extent to which childcare is a feminised responsibility

with the expectation that children are the primary responsibility of mothers. Indeed,

the great majority of applications made to the courts in the Caribbean are made by

mothers. The chapter is based on research undertaken by the authors with support

from IDRC and UNICEF and published by the UNIFEM Caribbean Office in 2008 as

‘Child Support, Poverty and Gender Equality: Policy Considerations for Reform’.

Background

There is already state investment in the resolution of issues relating to, primarily,

financial support to the care of children. This investment is evident in justice processes,

including legal aid programmes and in public assistance programmes. However, state

involvement is predicated on the assumption and indeed active encouragement that

parents carry the main responsibility for the care of children. This position is a historical

one, where the state sought to devolve responsibility for the care of families squarely

onto the private sphere.

In the Caribbean, this burden is a particularly feminised one as women are the primary

caretakers of children, a fact coded into the language of ‘female-headed households’.

Such households are not usually ones where women are understood as the primary

authority figures with the presence of a residential partner. Rather, the singular feature

of such households is the absence of a residential adult man living in partnership with

the woman head. Single women-headed households now account for almost half of all

households in many parts of the Caribbean.

There are few areas where the courts are used more than for resolution of child

support disputes. Most people’s interactions with the court system, with the concepts of

justice and rule of law, are tied up in working out parental obligations for caring for

children – be it financial and/or custodial. Yet this is a system attended by deep

dissatisfaction. Users of the court system complain about inadequate and discriminatory

laws, delays, the low level of awards, inefficient administration, distant and hostile judicial

officers and impunity for non-compliance with court orders. These complaints remain