The website www.seuleavecenfant.wallonie.be, devoted to single-parent families has now gone live in Wallonia. The website’s operation was revealed by the Minister for Social Justice Alda Greoli on Friday.
The site is one of the implementation strategies for “legal screening”, undertaken by the University of Namur. The 190,527 single-parent families recorded in Wallonia make up 12.2% of all Walloon households, stated the report. Taking account of alternate custody households, this proportion might even reach 25% to 30% of households. Single mothers with one or two children are more numerous than fathers in the same position.
In Wallonia, male single-parent households comprise 1.9% of all households. In comparison, female single-parent households make up 9.7%. Moreover female single-parent households have a greater risk of insecurity in terms of accommodation. One single-parent mother in two is living in accommodation in an average condition or even in a highly unpleasant state.
A number of legal provisions take account of the situation of single-parent families. That having been said, it does seem that such families’ access to both rights and to financial aid remain extremely difficult to achieve, in many cases owing to their ignorance.
The impact of the website is increased twofold by having an e-mail contact address fmp.actionsociale@spw.wallonie.be. Those affected can put any questions or issues they have to a support staff network drawn from across all Walloon administrative bodies, with assistance from the third sector organisation Droits Quotidiens (www.droitsquotidiens.be) and also Notaire.be (www.notaire.be).
The Brussels Times
