Getting child maintenance from a parent who lives overseas
Dear Mrs Macaulay, I am a mother residing in Jamaica seeking legal advice and assistance regarding an international child support matter. My child’s father currently lives overseas and has not been maintaining or financially supporting our child. I have been trying to find the proper legal channels to pursue child support internationally, but I have been facing difficulties understanding the process and accessing the right assistance. I am reaching out through this newspaper in hopes of receiving guidance, legal advice, or information about organisations, lawyers, or government agencies that may be able to assist me with an international child support case involving a parent living abroad.
As a mother, I am doing my best to provide for my child, and I would greatly appreciate any help, direction, or support you can offer.
You have not stated when the father of your child left Jamaica to live abroad, or whether he is a born national of the country in which he lives. You have also not stated the country by name. These pieces of information are important to enable me to give you specific information. Despite the gaps in your information, I shall do my best to be as clear as I can.
Firstly, your use of the term “international child support matter” is incorrect. What you are in fact talking about is either doing an application for the maintenance contribution for your child from the father if you do not have an order from the Family Court or Supreme Court of Jamaica, which had specified what sums he should pay for his child’s maintenance. Or, if you already have an order which he is disobeying, how you can have such an order enforced against him in the country where he is residing, and have the money sent to you for your child. This is another piece of information you failed to state in your letter. All maintenance orders are made in national /domestic courts in every country.
So what should you do? You must first retain the services of an attorney-at-law or go to the Family Court of your parish for help to prepare your relevant documents. You need to have the father’s correct address. As the father resides abroad, you absolutely need the services of a lawyer to proceed, as there are more complications when a respondent in a court matter is abroad. There are differences between countries which are members of the Commonwealth, for example, the United Kingdom, Caricom countries and other ex-British colonies in other parts of the world; and then there are those which are foreign countries, for example, the United States (US), countries in Europe, and some in other parts of the world.
If you are in the first category, and had not applied for an maintenance order before the father left the island to reside abroad, then you must apply either here in Jamaica in our courts and as the Rules of Court specify, with service of the documents on the father in his country of residence, which must also follow the Rules about service in such a country and how to prove such a service on him.
The very first thing I must ask is whether the father’s name (with or without further details) are on your child’s birth certificate. If it is not, the first application must then be for a Declaration of Paternity. Your application for maintenance can also be prepared, filed and served on him at the same time. The first to be heard and decided would then be the paternity declaration. If you cannot successfully prove that he is the father of your child (a DNA test could be ordered if he does not admit to being your child’s father), then that would be the end of the matter. If you are successful, then the maintenance application would be heard next.
You must deliver a certified copy of your child’s birth certificate and give all the facts to support your claim that he is the father, and exactly what sum your child needs from the father to complete with your contribution, the total sum necessary for your child’s complete needs. The sum must include the cost of shelter (home), this is to say proportional part of rental, mortgage or cost of running the home; cost of utilities, phone, food, transportation, clothing and footwear for all occasions, cost of grooming, and one-half of educational and medical expenses and a sum for miscellaneous and amusement activities.
You can also retain a lawyer where he resides to file the maintenance application there on your behalf for your child. So you have a choice where you can file, there or here.
If you already have an order, then you need to file processes to enforce the order and the sums due to be collected from him where he resides and then sent to you.
If he lives in a Commonwealth country, your certified order can be sent there to be registered and enforced as these do not need the existence of a treaty to be enforceable through their court’s processes.
If it is a foreign country, then your order will have to be transmitted to the foreign country if it has a Reciprocal Agreement for the Enforcement of Orders and Judgements with Jamaica. In the case of the US, he must reside in a State which has such a reciprocal agreement with Jamaica. If he does not, then you will have to see about initiating your application in that country, which can be a seriously costly exercise. The assistance of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade is also necessary.
The best thing for you to do, from what I can deduce from the paucity of the facts in your letter, is to go to the Family Court in your parish and seek their assistance and take your child’s certified birth certificate with you. I assure you that the clerk there shall explain everything to you, and if you can file an application, they will assist you to do so.
I wish you and your child the best of luck.
Margarette May Macaulay is an attorney-at-law, Supreme Court mediator, notary public, and women’s and children’s rights advocate. Send questions via e-mail to allwoman@jamaicaobserver.com; or write to All Woman, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5. All responses are published. Mrs Macaulay cannot provide private, personal responses.
