MENS urges affordability as NOW backs paternity testing

Founder of the Men Empowerment Network Support (MENS), Fabian Sargeant, has endorsed Acting Chief Magistrate Deidre McKenna’s call for mandatory paternity testing in child maintenance court cases.

Speaking during a public forum this week, McKenna argued that state-funded, compulsory DNA testing should be introduced to ensure fairness and certainty for fathers brought before the courts in child maintenance matters.

While backing McKenna’s proposal, Sargeant stressed that mandatory testing should apply only to cases before the courts, not as a blanket policy.

“I definitely support the acting chief magistrate and her call for mandatory testing for those cases that come before the court,”Sargeant told Barbados TODAY. “It must be clear when they call for mandatory testing, this does not mean general mandatory testing across the country, but within the court system where there are serious matters as it relates to child custody and so forth.”

However, he expressed reservations about full State funding and urged that tests be made affordable for fathers.

“The part that we differ on is that I believe it is going to be a bit touchy to call for the State to pay for that test… Maybe once the case goes before the court and the father is given the option for the test… [but] I think that the paternity testing should be readily available at a cost that doesn’t cause men to have to break the bank… It should still be reasonably affordable to men.”

Sargeant also called for consequences in cases where paternity tests reveal a man is not the biological father, arguing that reimbursement or legal redress should follow.

“In situations where a father does the test and that child does not belong to him, I think that he should be reimbursed or there should be some consequences across the board because there are situations where this is purposely done,” he said.

“It is not good enough where a man could support a child sometimes, 10, 14, 16 years, and then learns that child is not his, and then everybody has to walk away free, and he has to deal with the emotional and financial fallout.”

He added that many men are reluctant to request DNA tests for fear of being denied access to their children.

“[Some] mothers withhold these children from the man, [saying], ‘if you want to get a DNA test, you can’t see the child.’ So a lot of men are fearful of the outcome,” he said.

Meanwhile, Melissa Savoury-Gittens, president of the National Organisation of Women (NOW), also supported mandatory testing once cases escalate to the courts, but highlighted wider flaws in the current system.

“One of the other problems that we have is the fact that they arrest men who aren’t paying. I know it’s a women’s organisation, but at the end of the day, if you arrest the man because he’s not paying, what does that do? That doesn’t help him pay any better. So that needs to be revised,” she said.

Savoury-Gittens stressed that more attention should be paid to why fathers fall behind on payments.

“Some other department should be able to find out why a man is not paying,” she said. “Is it because he’s unemployed? If he’s unemployed, then what can we do to get him employment so that he can support his child, instead of just dragging him into prison?” (SB)