
Child benefit (kinderbijslag) in Belgium
The growth package (Groeipakket) you must now say, since January 1, against what used to be the child allowance. I have seen a great many objections passed against the reprehensible statement of our brand new but already damaged Prime Minister Jan Jambon. Indeed, he claimed to know of recognized asylum families who were able to buy a house with the backlog of child benefits, and he was indignant about that.
This caused quite a stir across the country, from people who found this distasteful, but in my opinion it mostly misses the point, which is the following. Every child living in our country has an unconditional claim to this money paid to parents. So to “draw” child benefit, you must have children to begin with.The benefit is intended to make it easier to raise children and eliminate the financial disadvantage compared to people who do not have children. Everyone agrees that the state contribution is actually too small to come close. Regardless, children of asylum families are entitled to that money at some point. They sometimes have to wait a long time for that, because the government is slow to deliver.
To reach a high amount of child support arrears, you must already have many children and it must already take a very long time for the state to calculate how much you are entitled to, and deposit the sum due. It would already solve a lot if that could be done faster. It can’t be that difficult. All the while those parents have the same costs as other parents, and the children have an inalienable right to their growth package. But now suppose that there are parents who suddenly receive a large sum of money, which they were entitled to all along, and they would make the decision to use this capital to buy a house, don’t you think that this will ultimately benefit the children? They need to live, don’t they? They grow up in our unsurpassed society in which they have to learn that all Belgians and those who reside here legally have the same rights, unless expressly stated otherwise in a law.
If you, as the head of the government, are dismissive of this, then you are not only questioning our rule of law, but you are also threatening the well-being of the children in question.
Also read the reader’s letter to Jan Jambon, published in De Morgen on Jan. 3, 2020 (in Dutch)
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