DEADBEAT dads are in for a hard time.

Courts will be empowered to sentence them to do community service, go for financial counselling or even post a bank guarantee to ensure they do not default on maintenance payments to their ex-wives and children.

New measures are also being put in place to make it easier for ex-spouses to seek and enforce maintenance orders.

These moves, alerted by Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS) Vivian Balakrishnan last year, are set to come into force by next year.

In announcing the stiffer enforcement actions yesterday, Dr Balakrishnan noted that the number of defaulters continues to rise.

This, despite defaulters facing the threat of jail, fines and court orders that require banks to transfer money from a defaulting spouse to the ex-wife.

Last year, 3,585 applications were made for maintenance orders to be enforced, 10 per cent more than the previous year.

Also, orders to pay alimony and child support were often shrugged off. Of the 4,515 orders issued in 2005, 966 or 21 per cent were breached within three years.

Almost half of the 966 orders were ignored more than once.

The situation will worsen with the rise in divorces.

About 6 per cent of couples who married in 2004 had divorced by last year, their fifth year of marriage.

By comparison, for couples who were married in 1987 - including Dr Balakrishnan - the corresponding figure was only 3.2 per cent.

'In the last two decades, the likelihood of a marriage failing within five years has doubled,' the minister added, in his response to several MPs calling for a tougher stand against defaulting ex-spouses.

Among them was Madam Cynthia Phua (Aljunied GRC), who said: 'Love is blind. As a woman, I'd like to appeal to all women, take charge of your love life. If a man does not take responsibility for his ex-wife and children, there is every likelihood he'll do it again.'

The process for women to seek enforcement of the maintenance order will also be made less onerous, said Dr Balakrishnan. They will be able to lodge complaints via video links at family service centres, instead of having to personally appear in court to begin the process.

The Women's Charter will be amended to give the courts new powers to impose further penalties. These include allowing the courts to issue more orders to a defaulter's employer to deduct the maintenance amount from his salary, as well as impose community-based sentences.

Said Dr Balakrishnan: 'We've had situations where the man says, 'It's all right, put me in jail, then I can't work, then I can't pay'.

'So, courts need to have an additional menu of options in which they can penalise or deter the recalcitrants without necessarily stopping them from being able to continue working.'

A 41-year-old secretary, divorced for 12 years, cheered the new measures, saying her ex-husband had defaulted many times through the years.

The longest stretch during which he failed to pay her alimony was four months.

But even defaulting for one month was enough to throw her finances off kilter as her 12-year-old son requires special treatment for his dyslexia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

She also supports her aged parents.

She has taken enforcement action a few times, but hesitated on several other occasions as she feared taking time off work would not go down well with her employer.

'With the video link filing, I believe the applications for such complaints will definitely go up.'

[email protected]

New measures

Deterring defaulters:

# Spouses who fail to pay maintenance can be ordered by the court to post a bank guarantee to set aside funds against future defaults.

# They can be sentenced to do community service by the courts.

# They can also be ordered to go for financial counselling by the courts.

# Their spouses can report the maintenance amount owing to them to credit bureaus, to better reflect the credit standing of defaulters.

# People registering their second or subsequent marriages must declare any outstanding maintenance debts.

# Employers will also get more orders from the courts to deduct the maintenance amount from an employee's salary.

# Complaining ex-spouses can, under a soon-to-be-amended law, obtain employment information of defaulters from the CPF Board.

Easier enforcement:

# Court processes will be improved to make it easier for complainants to enforce maintenance orders.

# Courts will be given powers to order defaulting spouses to provide information on their financial status.

# People without lawyers to help them enforce maintenance orders can turn to newly launched centres called Help, or Helping to Empower Litigants-in-Person.

This article was first published in The Straits Times.