Letters: Single moms move to U.K. for benefit cash

Women should be fighting for their benefits here, not taking funds from the Brits

Dear Sir,

I read your article with disgust and, having waited a few days, I finally feel composed enough to respond.

In your article, Sheelagh Cooper and Fern Wade encourage single mothers who have several children with different fathers to move to the U.K. with the sole aim of benefiting from Britain’s generous benefits system.

I have a number of questions for them to answer:

• Who do they expect to foot the bill for these single mothers and their many illegitimate dependents? (I must point out that Britain is, and has been, quite capable of producing its own single mothers and the social problems that this brings).
• What qualities will these single mothers and their dependants take to Britain? How will they be able to contribute to entitle them and to make up for what they are wanting to take? (A question which any developed country like Bermuda would ask of people entering the country).
• Do they realise that the U.K. does not stop at England’s borders? Ms Cooper might also like to know that the U.K. includes Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. England is already over-burdened with people from overseas taking advantage of their generosity so it would be nice to balance it out a bit.
• What gives them the right to encourage this on the front page of your newspaper? (If they are that concerned, the old saying “Charity begins at home” would seem applicable.)
• Have these women not heard of condoms? Bermuda’s clinics offer birth control at a very reasonable rate. Surely this information would be a much cheaper answer to distribute to the single mothers and their many partners.
• Why do these single mothers and their encouragers feel that it is okay to expect a country, which they have not contributed anything to, to support them in their poor life decisions? How do they feel they will be received by the locals who come to realise they are there purely for the benefits that the hard working people of the U.K. have contributed so their own can be looked after?
• Why is leaving your home country, and with it your local support system of family and friends, and also any chance of gaining from changes in the child support system, the best option?

Surely these women should be fighting for their rights to benefits in their own country rather than running off to another to take what rightly belongs to someone else.

Tim Perry, Warwick 

We should be ashamed

Dear Sir,

Well how absurd is that!?

We now have economic migration OUT of Bermuda! Haven’t I heard that Bermuda is near the top of the leader-board for GNP per capita?

We really should hang our heads in shame. Though I cannot make too much of a song and dance since I don’t know how significant this emigration is, still it says a lot about redistribution of wealth.

There appears to be not quite enough pumped into the bottom in order to give our neighbours, relatives, friends, fellow Bermudians there a chance and their children opportunities to blossom in the country of their birth.

Free early childhood development programmes, free day care, and free pre-school for all families in Bermuda!

Delaey W. Robinson, St. George’s

Single moms leaving the island part of a broader trend

Dear Sir,

In commenting on your article about single mothers seeing the U.K. as an option, let me say that from my personal experience, they are not the only ones looking at moving off-island as an option.

Be it U.K. or anywhere else, does anyone have the numbers on how many Bermudians are purchasing property overseas in preparation for leaving?

These are first-time home buyers, not some privileged group looking for a vacation home.

The cost of living in Bermuda is a reality for residents on all economic levels.

In my circle alone, I know of no less than 23 people who have purchased homes that they are paying off while they work here. When they leave, they take their education and skills with them. It’s called a brain drain.

The same thing applies with these single mothers. Once they get their diplomas and degrees, are we assuming that they are going to come back here to the benefit of this island? I don’t think so. No one is going to give them a house to stay in or a housing allowance so they can work here.

What about these children’s fathers? Do they care that they and their families won’t have access to their children at all? What are they expecting?

And if this phase becomes a growing trend, with people going off-island out of fear of gangs, lack of safety for their children, education and economic situations what will Bermuda look like in ten years?

Anika Smith-Picchia, Somerset

You can’t have it both ways

Dear Sir,

If I were a U.K. taxpayer I would be extremely unhappy about this.  

This activity smells of convenience and ignores the PLP Government’s disdain for the U.K., the Governor in his constitutional role and our historical cultural connections.  

You can’t have it both ways!

G. S. Powell, Hamilton

Read more:

• Single moms move to U.K. for benefit cash
• Brits oppose Bermudian benefit seekers