Motion Fatherhood Law approved

October 20, 2009 6:20 AM

THE HAGUE - The Lower House last week approved a motion initiated by the Antillean organisation OCaN (Organisatie voor Caribische Nederlanders) to have parliament look into the possibility of introducing a fatherhood law.

On the request of OCaN Chairman Glenn Helberg, Member of the Dutch Parliament (MP) Joël Voordewind of the Christian Union (CU) presented a motion earlier this month during a debate with Minister of Youth and Family Affairs André Rouvoet, also of the CU.

Helberg has good hopes that the so called fatherhood law can be established soon.

This fatherhood law would make it compulsory for women to provide the name of the biological father of their newborn baby during registration at the Civil Registry. Many mothers currently fill in “father unknown” when registering their newborn.

According to OCaN, this is especially a problem in the Antillean community. As a result, children grow up without their father or knowing who their father is. This also means that the father generally does not contribute financially to their upbringing.

Half of the Antillean children grow up in a one-parent family. Research has shown that this is one of the reasons why boys start showing problematic behaviour at puberty. Antillean youngsters are over-represented in national crime and unemployment figures in the Netherlands.

Also Curaçao knows the problems of one-parent families. The foundation Ceda (Centro di Damas) has been active on Curaçao since 1995 in informing women and their family. Helberg: "Since july there is a bill to make "Father unknown" also impossible. A child can then find out who its father is."

On Curaçao the Fatherhood law was submitted to the Advisory Council in September last year, but has not been dealt with within the Parliament yet. Last year, Court president Lisbeth Hoefdraad once again emphasized the importance of the implementation hereof so that children could experience additional protection of their rights.

Helberg, who is also a youth psychiatrist, found support for this issue with the CU party. Minister Rouvoet promised he would meet with OCaN. Nevertheless, MP Voordewind tabled a motion to encourage the minister to seriously look into introducing a fatherhood law.

Seven parties in the Dutch Parliament supported the motion: Christian Democratic Party CDA, Socialist Party SP, green left party GroenLinks, Party for Freedom PVV, the reformed SGP party, CU, and the fraction Verdonk.

19 October 2009