In most areas of endeavor, the government should be a demanding customer rather than a provider (or subsidizer).

Like many of the Iraqis who went to Europe, Aziz was the breadwinner for his family. But now he couldn t send any money home.

To give just one example, in the Breadwinner case the State party had amended social security legislation that discriminated against women who were neither breadwinners nor permanently separated from their husbands in relation to their eligibility to receive unemployment benefits.

Yet female civil servants bear a heavy tax burden because, in practice and in the public mind, it is only the head of household who supports the children, even though in many cases it is actually the woman who is providing for their support

The traditional male role as provider has often led work to take precedence over time spent with family. Indeed, in reflecting on their childhoods, many graduates may lament that their fathers spent too little time at home, or were less nurturing than they could have been.

4.2 As to the alleged inconsistency of article 227 of the Criminal Code with article 11 of the Covenant, the State party notes that the former provides for imprisonment not for debt but for abandonment of one's dependent family, i.e., on grounds deriving not from a contractual agreement but from a legal requirement.