When Privacy Laws Meet Public Lives. Both the Children’s Act and the Maintenance Act in South Africa are clear: when there are active cases involving children, parties are prohibited from publishing or sharing any information that could reveal the child’s identity. This includes names, photographs, or any details that could make a child identifiable. Court judgments and published articles follow the same principle using only initials to protect minors from exposure. The intention behind these...

Why the UK’s Repeal of the Contact Presumption Is a Necessary Shift. The recent decision by the UK Justice Department to repeal the statutory presumption of parental involvement has triggered emotional reactions, especially among those aligned with the so-called “parental alienation” movement. Some have framed this as a war on fathers or the erosion of family integrity. But in truth, this reform signals something far more profound: a long-overdue realignment of family justice with the...

By Felicity Guest, Financial Abuse Specialist and Founder of Child Maintenance Difficulties South Africa (CMDSA) When I attended the launch of the Equality Now report Unequal Equalities: The State of Family Law in Africa last year, one statement stayed with me: “At the current pace, it could take 260 years, six generations, to achieve equality in Africa’s family courts.” Two hundred and sixty years. Six generations of women, mothers, and children still waiting for justice systems that see and...