It's 9am and a colleague and I are sitting on a bench outside an office at the Johannesburg Family Court. We're waiting to interview a prosecutor about a project we're working on. Looking around, I notice many women, some with children, and a few men, sharing the bench with me. None of them are smiling. A woman comes out of a room and calls out some names. It reminds me of the outpatients section of a hospital. I realise that I'm sharing a bench with people who are either there to collect maintenance for their children or to obtain a maintenance order against their child's other parent. No wonder they're not smiling. From what I had heard from family and friends, the whole process of getting and enforcing a maintenance order can be a nightmare.