In 2004, the papers reported that non-Muslim parents must pay for their children’s education until they finish their university studies. It also reported that the government hoped to table the amendments in Parliament by March 2005.

Well, if you would kindly check your calendar, it has been four years since the day this piece of news was reported and there is still no change in the law taking place. How much time do you possibly need? The deputy minister concerned, Tan Chai Ho of Home Affairs, himself then said that the new law would help single parents with their children’s education.

Section 95 of the Law Reform (Marriage and Divorce) Act 1976 limits the maintenance of a child only up to 18 years of age. This was reinforced by a federal court decision recently. Because of such injustice to children aged 18 and above, the legislature should step in to amend Section 95 to compel a parent to pay maintenance for children beyond 18 if they are receiving education or training.

Otherwise, irresponsible fathers can take advantage of this law to dump their children upon the age of 18, a good example being my separated husband who refuses to pay for my daughter’s maintenance and education as she had turned 18 this year.

Our government has always said that young people are the future or our country. Aren’t teenagers from broken families part of our country’s vision too? They have done nothing wrong to deserve being punished or deprived by the law and yet they are the ones being punished. It is because of this law that the children of divorced parents suffer further.

Try to understand what these children go through as they are still in college and are certainly in no position to financially support themselves. When my daughter was 17, the family court judge in Jalan Duta ordered her to pay for her own college education with her very own savings.

How long would these savings last? What is she going to do then? My two daughters refuse to see or even talk to their father after both of them found out that he stopped paying for their education and maintenance when they turned 18.

My ex-husband’s assets are estimated to about RM10 million. Whenever an advertisement for student scholarships appears, I honestly do not know which category my family is in. It is not as if my former husband has no money to pay for my children’s education overseas - it’s just that he wishes to use the law as an excuse not to pay .

With Section 95 unchanged, how do you expect there to be an increase in a community’s population? We do not know if our marriages are going to last and if we have too many children, what’s going to happen to their futures?

If this law does not change, irresponsible divorced fathers will abandon their children at the age 18, leaving them desolate and desperate. As we can see from all of this, it is the children who are the ones who suffer the most.

What have they done to deserve all this? I pray that the prime minister will step in to solve this problem and not let it delay further. Please do not fill our hearts with hope only to crush them under the sole of your boot in the end.