California is the center of an international child support battle

The 2007 Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Family Maintenance went into full effect in the United States on Jan. 1, 2017. Now, California is at the heart of one of the first cases to try to help a woman get financial support from the biological father of her child.

This isn’t a new issue for people who have an ex overseas, but there is now some form of recourse that they can take in an effort to get the other parent to take responsibility for the child. The barriers that are placed due to international jurisdiction are difficult to overcome, but the Hague Convention reciprocal relationships should make these easier to overcome.

The California case has to do with a father in France, a mother in Sacramento County and a 5-year-old boy. The woman first opened the case for child support in April of 2013. She notes that the man asked if they could have an alternative solution to a formal agreement, but that after caring for their son and supporting him alone, she wants something official and signed. She isn’t asking the man to be a part of the child’s life. She is only seeking financial support.

As of August of 2017, California has received 18 requests to enforce child support orders and has initiated 20 new cases overseas. The key with this new case is to find out just how well the treaty will work since it has only been in force for a little over a year here.

The mother concedes that the father has sent some voluntary payments, but those haven’t been regularly occurring. She works for the Sacramento County government, but the father is said to earn the equivalent of $11,099 per month. She notes that she only wants is due to her child.

Source: The Sacramento Bee, “Can California make a French dad pay for his kid? A test case is here,” Stephan Magagnini, accessed May 17, 2018