Photographer : Jenny Pics
No one is sure just how many men are victims of paternity fraud: that is, believing that they are the father of another man's child. According to a UK study, the tally could be as high as 30 per cent, while Melbourne’s Swinburne University says it is just one per cent.
Whatever the case, parental paranoia is on the increase, with paternity testing, the practice of using DNA analysis to determine the biological father of a child, doubling in Australia from 3000 in 2003 to more than 6000 in 2007.
This paternity uncertainty led to the change in section 143 of the Child Support (Assessment) Act. Now, family courts can order repayment of child support where paternity is successfully challenged.
These changes in January 2008 have seen women being forced to pay back as much as $60,000 to men that previously believed they were the father of a child. Cleared by DNA testing, these deceived dads clearly have reason to celebrate, but it is the children who may be the real losers.
Former family services minister Mal Brough said the change was aimed at “reducing conflict between separated parents and, in particular, encouraging shared parenting by introducing a system that is fairer and puts the children’s needs first." But women’s groups say it makes children the target of the disputes, since they are the ones who would suffer most if money were paid back.
This change in legislation reflects the influence that DNA testing laboratories and men’s rights groups such as Men’s Confraternity have on the law. Groups that do not have the rights of the child as their number one priority. This tendency towards focusing on the estranged partners and their financial entitlements takes away from what should be the central focus of the debate – what the effect of paternity fraud is on the child.
There are emotional and developmental considerations, not to mention the implications of forced repayments on their welfare. Even Brian McDonald, the director of a national testing laboratory, admits that in the paternity testing process “the rights of the child are often abused”.
The potential for harm to children caught in the crossfire of false paternity was raised as a major issue in a 2003 inquiry into DNA testing, released by the Australian Law Reform Commission and the Australian Health Ethics Committee. A Sydney IVF laboratory voiced concerns that “. . . testing might be initiated for financial reasons and without consideration for the welfare of the child.”
In an environment where angry ex partners get all the attention, the effect of these law changes on the child is yet to be seen. However, the seeming lack of interest in the negative outcomes for kids is a major cause for concern. "The money has already been spent on rearing the child," said Sole Parent's Union President Kathleen Swinbourne. "If the mother is forced to pay it back, it’s hard to imagine the child won't be disadvantaged."
The children’s voices at the centre of these financial and genetic dramas seem to have been lost, as men’s and women’s group’s dominate the media, the courts and the laboratories. Rather than focusing on money falsely paid through the Child Support Agency as wasted wages that a misled father is entitled to, courts need to rethink a system that may mean children are punished for their parent's mistakes.
How do I know this?
Australian Law Reform Commission/Australian Health Ethics Committee, ‘Essentially Yours: The Protection of Human Genetic Information in Australia,’ 29 May, 2003.
www.alrc.gov.au/media/2003/mr2905.htm
Bisset, Kelvin, ‘Paternity tests prove hundred of men duped,’ Daily Telegraph, November 11, 2008.
www.news.com.au/story/0,,24634062-2,00.html
Das, Sushi and Silkstone, Dan., ‘Seeds of heartache’, The Age, November 1, 2003
www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/10/31/1067566083336.html
Gilding, M. ‘Rampant misattributed paternity: the creation of an urban myth’ People and Place, vol. 13, no. 2, 2005
Gilding, Michael, ‘New technology, new choices, new debates: paternity testing without the consent of the mother’, Family Matters No.68 , Australian Institute of Family Studies, Winter 2004.
Fell, Nicola, ‘Dads turning to DNA to resolve child support disputes’, ABC Radio, November 11, 2008
www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2416858.htm
Bruce and Weston, Ruth, ‘A snapshot of contemporary attitudes to child support’, Australian Institute of Family Studies,
www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/resreport13/main.html
Paternity Fraud Australia website, accessed Friday, 28th November www.paternityfraudaustralia.com.au/ Confraternity website, accessed Friday, 28th November
www.mensconfraternity.org.au/?page=p74 
