Whereto for maintenance law as child support grants and defaulters put it to the test

Abstract

The paper explores the challenges faced by South African children in need of maintenance against the backdrop of the solid South African legal framework that regulates this sphere and questions the resonance between such legal framework and their day to day experiences. This applies to both parental and state grants. It continues to assess the effectiveness of the state enforcement mechanisms employed to deal with child maintenance and makes recommendations in that regard. Crudely put, South African children in need of maintenance face perennial challenges in the form of inadequate provision of means of support for their physical, mental, spiritual, moral and emotional development.