RIGHTS-CHILE: All Children Now Treated As Equals

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo González

SANTIAGO, Oct 30 1999 (IPS) - A new law went into effect Wednesday in Chile, ending legal discrimination against children, whether they were born to married parents or not.

President Eduardo Frei presented the bill in parliament in October 1998, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Patricio Aylwin (1990-1994), who originally sponsored the bill.

Before the law was instituted, birth certificates in Chile’s Public Records read “illegitimate” for babies born outside a marital relationship and not legally recognised by either of the parents.

The new legislation puts an end to the birth record designation of “illegitimate” as well as “natural,” which refers to a child born outside of marriage but who is recognised by at least one parent.

“Illegitimate” and “natural” children not only suffer the stigma of these designations, they also suffer the discrimination of being excluded from educational and military institutions, for example, as well as being prohibited entry into associations governed by conservative rules.

Josefina Bilbao, minister of the National Service for Women (SERNAM), said the new law marks an end to the injustice of children paying the consequences of their parents’ actions or decisions.

According to statistics from the Public Records for 1998, 116,352 children were born in Chile outside of legally constituted matrimony, the equivalent of 45.8 percent of all births recorded that year.

Of that total, 85,488 were recognised by both parents, 30,251 by the mother only, and 44 by the father only – all categorised as “natural.” The “illegitimate” children, not recognised by either parent, totalled 352.

Children born to unmarried parents is a phenomenon on the rise in Chile. In 1985, such children represented 30 percent of all births, with the portion increasing to 40.4 percent in 1995, and expected to reach more than 46 percent this year.

The predominance of recognition by both parents reflects a cultural change in Chilean society, because many couples are now planning their lives together without necessarily turning to the institution of marriage, according to sociologists.

Chile is the only country among the western democracies that does not have a divorce law and has resulted in more “de facto” families and more children categorised, until now, as “natural.”

Most people whose first marriage fails find it difficult to dissolve their matrimony legally, so they often choose to establish a new relationship and create a new family in which both parents legally recognise the children, say experts.

The 30,251 cases in 1998 of children recognised by their mothers only, for the most part, came from conflictive relationships resulting from extra-marital affairs, abandonment and early pregnancy.

SERNAM minister Bilbao reported that, in this aspect, the new law also promotes responsible fatherhood. It establishes procedures for identifying the father and demanding his legal recognition of the child.

The new law gives the Legal Medical Service the legal mandate and financial resources to determine an individual’s paternity using genetic or DNA testing in cases where alleged fathers refuse to recognise their offspring.

This point of the law will help in achieving equal rights for “natural” and “illegitimate” children and their access to food subsidies and inheritance law, among other issues, said Bilbao.

The law will facilitate access of the low-income population to scientific and legal resources that guarantee their children’s rights, including the Legal Medical Institute and the Legal Assistance Corporations.

The one-year wait for the law to go into effect was spent preparing for implemention of the new regulations, training Public Records officers as well as legal and medical representatives.

Paulina Araneda, a SERNAM psychologist, said that the new law consecrates the basic rights of children who until now were not acknowledged in Chile, and that ending discrimination will lead to the better social development of all children.

By passing this legislation, the Chilean government is now in compliance with its commitments under the International Convention of Children’s Rights and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.