Benefits in 'father unknown' cases must end - AN

Azzjoni Nazzjoni insisted today that the governemnt should withhold social services for mothers who declare that the father of their baby is unknown, except in cases of rape.

In a statement, the political party said the Government's disclosure that the percentage of children with an 'unknown father' has more than doubled in one single year from just over nine percent to nearly twenty percent seems to support the recent report that Malta is at the top of the league for sexually transmitted diseases.

"The fact that one in five children in Malta are registered as being the offspring of unknown provenance can only mean one of two things:

"Either that a substantial number of women are so promiscuous that they can't recollect with whom they are fornicating with on any given occasion, or that there is rampant social welfare abuse. In either case, it is an unacceptable level of irresponsibility which decent citizens should refuse to put up with, much less subsidise," the party said.

"Any decent person with an ounce of dignity would refrain from lumbering his child with a birth certificate which reads 'unknown father' in return for social benefits or other egoistic impulses. Yet, it is evident that the appeal to basic decency no longer cuts any ice with a growing segment of the population."

The party said the government has the moral obligation to address this shocking trend.

"It should be obvious by now that the culture of benefits fostered by the 'nanny' - or perhaps more accurately the 'father' State - not only fails to do good but on the contrary increasingly absolves the individual of his responsibilities. The ancient unit of a mother, a child and a father has morphed from monogamy into "bureaugamy," a mother, a child and a bureaucrat.

"Azzjoni Nazzjonali reiterates that benefits should be withheld from mothers who insist on not declaring the identity of the fathers of their children. Only in the circumstance of rape should there be an exception," the party argued.

This, it explained, was not a holy war on single mothers, but a moral obligation to bring those fathers who have been so far absolved of their obligations to account and to shoulder the consequences of their actions.