The fear of drowning under unmanageable debt is just one of the many pressures experienced by single parents, especially mothers caring for their children alone. Several organisations supporting single mothers have called on the authorities to make political changes to help single mothers facing crippling debt.
While the struggle to make ends meet and manage debt is one problem, another comes from a solution already in place, according to professionals working in the field of support for single mothers. The legal procedure of collective debt settlement, seen as a manageable way of paying off debts in Belgium, is actually a mechanism that cripples and restricts single mothers as much as the debt itself.
Generally lasting seven years, the collective settlement of debts makes it possible to freeze debts and prevent bailiffs from coming to assets. A mediator takes care of your finances and pays you a sum each month to cover your day-to-day expenses. Once the collective debt settlement is completed, the debts are written off. The goal? Allow you to start from scratch.
While this procedure was put in place to help people get out of over-indebtedness, it nevertheless makes it difficult to live. You have to survive on little, without any control over your finances. Everything is calculated, everything has to be negotiated.
Inequality between fathers and mothers
Those representing the rights of single mothers, such as the Brussels-based associations 'Mamans Soloeotop' and 'Relais pour les mamans solos,' say that the procedure infantilises the mother, that the stipend is too low to cover emergencies and situations such as new shoes for the children.
They claim that calculating everything to the nearest cent does not take in the unpredictability of life and that if more gas or electricity is needed, for example, and the stipend does not cover it, supplies are sometimes cut off until the next month’s payment comes in. In extreme cases, if the debt is too high, children are in danger of being taken into the childcare system.
Why organisations representing single mothers are so up in arms is that the system appears to be unfairly rigged against them; there is an inequality between fathers and mothers in the face of collective debt settlement. In many cases, when the debts are generated by both parents and the father leaves and claims insolvency, the responsibility often falls squarely on the mother to pay off the debts.
The organisations are therefore calling for urgent reform of the law on collective debt settlement, asking for a reduction of collective debt settlement from seven years to five years which they claim would be less traumatic for the children involved. They say that this reduction would take away two years of suffering from the children, because seven years is a very long time for a child to be denied things such as extracurricular activities, holidays and even small luxuries like eating out or enjoying takeaways.
Another request is that controls are put in place to force fathers who go into insolvency to also repay their debts, so that this burden does not fall solely on the mother and her children. An official request will soon be submitted to the Justice Committee of the Chamber.
According to the office of Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne, a bill amending the Judicial Code to promote the use of collective debt settlement was tabled in May 2022. In particular, it proposes to shorten the duration of the procedure to make it less painful, as requested by the organisations. The aim is also to "ensure that the person in debt mediation can live in accordance with human dignity."
