Malema: 'When you don't support your child, you are creating a criminal in our community'
Party leader Julius Malema made these remarks while speaking at a Women’s Day rally in Secunda, Mpumalanga on Saturday afternoon.
EFF leader Julius Malema addressed a Women’s Day rally in Secunda, Mpumalanga on 9 August 2025. Picture: @EFFSouthAfrica/X
JOHANNESBURG - The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) is calling on government to take stronger action against fathers who persistently refuse to financially support their children.
Party leader Julius Malema made these remarks while speaking at a Women’s Day rally in Secunda, Mpumalanga on Saturday afternoon.
According to the justice department, there are over 170,000 incomplete child maintenance applications across the country.
Malema said that fathers who neglected their parental duties had no place in society.
"The EFF government is going to make sure that all men who have neglected their children will pay for maintenance, and if they don’t pay, we’re going to blacklist them so that they can't be active economically."
The justice department recently began rolling out an initiative in Gauteng to blacklist fathers who refuse to pay child maintenance.
Malema also addressed the consequences of child neglect.
"When you don't support your child, you are creating a criminal in our community. The criminals we find in our communities are produced by men who don’t pay maintenance. We are not saying love their mother, but love your children. You may have a problem with their mother, but don’t involve children. They’re innocent."