Statutory rape victim forced to pay child support

Talk about double standards!


So a 14 year-old boy who by law does not consent to sex with an adult is now forced to pay child support (see following story):

"Nick Olivas became a father at 14, a fact he wouldn't learn for eight years.

While in high school, Olivas had sex with a 20-year-old woman. As he sees it now, she took advantage of a lonely kid going through a rough patch at home.

State law says a child younger than 15 cannot consent with an adult under any circumstance, making Olivas a rape victim. But Olivas didn't press charges and says he didn't realize at the time that it was even something to consider.

The two went their separate ways. Olivas graduated from high school, went to college and became a medical assistant.

Then two years ago, the state served him with papers demanding child support. That's how he found out he had a then-6-year-old daughter.

"It was a shock," he said. "I was living my life and enjoying being young. To find out you have a 6-year-old? It's unexplainable. It freaked me out."

He said he panicked, ignored the legal documents and never got the required paternity test. The state eventually tracked him down.

Olivas, a 24-year-old Phoenix resident, said he now owes about $15,000 in back child support and medical bills going back to the child's birth, plus 10 percent interest. The state seized money from his bank account and is now garnisheeing his wages at $380 a month.

He has become one of the state's 153,000 active child-support cases, according to the Arizona Department of Economic Security division of Child Support Services.

In May alone, payments were not made in 49 percent of those cases, according to the agency.

Olivas' fear has turned to frustration.

He wants to be in his daughter's life and is willing to pay child support going forward. But he doesn't think it's right for the state to charge him for fees incurred when he was still a child himself or for the years he didn't know the girl existed.

"Anything I do as an adult, I should be responsible for," he said. "But as a teenager? I don't think so."

Further in the article what I found profound was in the following:

"Feit said if the roles were reversed and the woman was the victim, the scenario would be unthinkable.

"The idea that a woman would have to send money to a man who raped her is absolutely off-the-charts ridiculous," he said. "It wouldn't be tolerated, and it shouldn't be tolerated."

Feit said the basic legal premise of a rape is that the victim can't be held responsible. And with statutory rape, even if the victim participates, he or she can't be held responsible.

We're not going to hold him responsible for the sex act, so to then turn around and say we're going to hold him responsible for the child that resulted from that act is off-the-charts ridiculous," he said. "It makes no sense."

Source: http://www.azcentral.com/story/news/arizona/politics/2014/09/02/arizona-statutory-rape-victim-forced-pay-child-support/14951737/