In Mexico bad food payers exposed in a public place

Demonstration to the appeal of women's collectives to denounce the non-payment of alimony, in Mexico City, June 18, 2023.

In Mexico, on June 18, on Father’s Day, groups of mothers posted photos and names in public squares “bad food payers”, those millions of fathers who do not pay child support. For the third edition of this mobilization, the portraits of these men have been hung on long threads with clothespins, in symbolic places, such as the courthouses, central squares or in front of the presidential palace, in Mexico City.

Each poster of “debtor” indicates in addition to his name, the amount of the debt and a brief summary of the dispute: such as a company manager who has declared himself insolvent while his business is flourishing, such a father who has gone abroad “forget” her three children in Mexico…

“Social shame is more effective than justice”, says with a smile Diana Luz, spokesperson for the National Front of Mothers against bad payers, a collective born in 2021 and present today in thirty of the thirty-two states of the country.

In Mexico the situation of abandonment of single mothers has always existed in all social classes: in seven cases of divorce out of ten the fathers do not pay the alimony due. This represents nearly thirty-five million mothers, or 67.5 percent of single mothers in Mexico, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics and Geography.

“Immigration Restriction Measures”

This year, Diana Luz, 36, has a broad smile, because a great battle has been won: mothers obtained, at the end of April, the establishment of a national register of maintenance obligations, kept by the Institute of assistance to all childhood, one of their main requests. The father who does not assume his obligations will no longer be able to renew his passport or his driving licence, he will not have the right to buy or sell goods. And, if he remarries, his bad pay situation will be made public on the day of the ceremony.

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To claim a judiciary post or to be elected, men will now have to present a certificate of “non-registration” with this register.. “In addition, there are measures to restrict migration, to prevent those registered there from leaving the country”, said Senator Olga Sánchez, a former Supreme Court judge who carried out this project for the Morena party (on the left, in power).

“The important thing was to have a public register, because now, with just one name, you can know whether or not the person is a bad payer”, exults Diana Luz. So far, some twenty-two states in the Mexican Republic have boasted of having established such registries, including the one in Mexico City since 2011. “In reality only eight registers really worked, and to find it you needed to have the person’s tax code, relativizes Diana Luz. However, their ex-girlfriends don’t always have them. On the other hand, these registers did not give rise to any real sanctions. »

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By James Brown

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