Bernard helps cash-strapped dads to see their children

POLOKWANE – Bernard Lebogang Moyaha offers free legal services to financially struggling fathers to have visitation rights.

Moyaha is a candidate attorney at NJ Morero Inc, and explained that the idea was sparked by his social interactions with many dads.

“I have noted how most fathers are denied an opportunity to see their children simply because they are unable to maintain the children due to unemployment and having no financial means. In my view that is inhumane, as a father can still accept both his children and their mother even when the mother is not working, but the mother cannot do the same.”

He added that he has observed that for men to be accepted in a community, they need to have the financial means, while many mothers “are toxic towards their boy children simply because their fathers are not doing well financially”.

His role in assisting these fathers would be to institute an application against the mothers of their children at the Children’s Court and simultaneously draft the Parental (Access) Plan between the father and the mother which in simple terms is a document entailing the visitation dates and hours between the father and mother.

So far, he has seven fathers who have come forward for assistance.

“The normal legal criteria for one to be represented pro bono (free of charge) is when they earn less than R5 500 per month, but I am going to do things differently. Understanding the fact that sometimes, their expenses exceeds their income, I will represent those earning less than R10 000 for free,” he said.

Moyaha said he believes every child is born with two parents and that a father figure is necessary in a child’s life, especially in the adolescent stages.

“I have met a few women who hardly respect men, simply because their fathers were never part of their lives. A boy child needs a father in his adolescent stage to direct and guide him,” he said.