The Grand Duchy ranks 54 in the KidsRights Index and is failing in setting example to the European community assuring that Children’s Rights and International Conventions are not violated in Luxembourg courts.

Despite of the recent changes in the Luxembourg Civil Code introduced on November 1st, 2018, described and presented to the public as “revolutionary”, 50/50 Equal Shared Parenting – Alternating Residence is still not a default rule and rarely introduced by Luxembourg family courts. The legislators and judges in most cases remain immune to the evidence provided by over four decades of empirical studies, scientific conclusions and consensus among internationally recognized psychologists confirming that 50/50 Equal Shared Parenting – Alternating Residence is the most effective model bringing emotional stability to children during separation and after divorce of the parents.

Nowadays in Luxembourg over 90% of children custodies are awarded to mothers using template approach “allowing” fathers only to visit with the children every 2nd weekend. Gender bias and discriminatory decisions in-considered of children’s needs and their well-being, violating all of the below mentioned treaties, fundamental human rights and conventions:

1. Article 3(3) of the Treaty on European Union 
2. Article 24 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union 
3. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 
4. Article 8 of the European Convention 

What if…

Two men get married in Luxembourg (same sex marriages are legal in Luxembourg since January 2015). They love each other. After few years they adopt a child because they legally can and because they can create good home. A few years later for one reason or another they get divorced. They are in conflict and cannot agree on anything especially on whom the child should live with. Both men want full custody. Both have full parental authority (custody and authority are two separate things), they are financially independent, capable of raising the child but neither one of them is a the biological parent.

Following the logic of current Luxembourg judicial system and the approach continuously introduced in Luxembourg family courts the custody should go to the mother. If so, who will decide who the mother is and what measures are there to take to determine which one of the two men is the mother?

FAD – Fathers Against Discrimination a.s.b.l. has raised this question, but so far, neither Mr. Prime Minister BETTEL nor Minister of Justice Félix BRAZ were able to answer to this inquiry.

Please visit www.fad.lu, sign FAD’s Petition and help us make 50/50 Shared Parenting – Alternating Residence become a rule and a starting point for all children custody hearings in Luxembourg just as it has been in Belgium since 2006. It takes 5 seconds. We can change things.