Deserted wife hunts down errant dads

Describing herself as a "large" woman, Daphne Smit squeezes her frame out of a taxi. She glances at the address in her hand and waits to see if the man she is looking for is behind the closed door. He is.

She smiles quietly to herself: This particular trace has been easier than others she has done. Now she must get the warrant of arrest to the police - by the afternoon, she hopes he will be behind bars and soon, her client should be getting the maintenance owed to feed her family.

Smit, a mother of three, was deserted by her husband five years ago. He not only took away his love, but also the family's livelihood. Smit found herself destitute - her eldest child had to leave university and the two younger children were taken in, housed and fed by the German School.

She felt powerless. While she sat in court daily trying to get maintenance from her ex-husband, the tears flowed continuously.

"One of the magistrates came up to me, handed me the Maintenance Act and told me to stop crying and see what I can do," recalled Smit.

She did what the magistrate suggested and, three years ago, opened her own Maintenance Tracing and Investigation service. "He wanted to empower me, and now I empower others," she said.

While she will not divulge exactly how she goes about tracing maintenance defaulters, Smit did say that all she needs is an identity number or the full name of the defaulter to start the trace.

Once the last known address or workplace is established, Smit then takes public transport to the location and spends her time scouting around, speaking to neighbours, colleagues and family in a bid to track down the errant father. This part of the investigation can take anything between a couple of hours to a couple of days or even weeks, depending on how "lost" the father wants to be.

Once she has tracked the father to a fixed address, she organises the warrant of arrest at the magistrate's court and takes it to the police station herself.

Smit is based in Cape Town, but she has a network of 20 volunteers working in the rest of the country and even overseas.

Although she charges R150 for her service, she is often persuaded by the sad tales of her clients to organise a payment scheme for them.

Smit said she had a good working relationship with the police and prosecutors, but the tracing business was an expensive one.

"To find a man might take anything from between 70c for a single phone call to R1 000, depending on how long the search takes," she explained.

The senior prosecutor in charge of family matters at the Durban magistrate's court, Val Melis, said the idea was brilliant and they would welcome it happening in Durban on a bigger scale. Police Director Bala Naidoo also said a service like Smit's would be welcomed.

Smit will not turn a distraught mother away. "I, too, have been there, and I know what it's like," she said.