Shared Physical Custody. Full Love.

Shared Physical Custody. Full Love.

The Portuguese Association for Parental Equality and the Rights of the Children launched a campaign on Shared Physical Custody with the objective of remembering the urgency of entering the theme in our law.

Almost 70% of the Portuguese with children defend that the children must be in the model of alternate residence after the separation/divorce of the country, a survey carried out by Netsonda in 2018 shows.

In addition, scientific studies carried out since the 1990s and in different countries have shown that this model reduces conflict and improves children’s lives (Fischer, Graaf, & Kalmijn, 2005; Hetherington & Kelly, 2003; Nielsen, 2017, Bauserman, 2002; Bergström, Fransson, & Hjern, Barn med växelvis boende, 2015; Fransson, Låftman, Östberg, Hjern, & Bergström, 2017; Children are better protected when both fathers and mothers are equally involved in their lives and when social institutions support them in fulfilling their responsibilities (Kruk, 2013).

The Council of Europe, through Resolution 2079 (2015), recommends transposing the system of alternate residence into the laws of its Member States. In Portugal, the Superior Council of the Judiciary argues that alternate residence must be legally provided for. And the Attorney-General’s Office follows the same orientation in its opinion sent to the Assembly of the Republic on the petition for the legal presumption of alternate residence for children of divorced or separated parents.
 
In this sense, several parties, such as the PS and the PAN, presented, in 2019, bills that aim to consecrate alternate residence as a preferential regime in the law. And already next June will be discussed in the Assembly of the Republic the dates for voting on these bills. And, as this theme is about to reach the Portuguese Parliament, the Portuguese Association for Parental Equality and the Rights of the Child launches a campaign to draw attention to the importance of having both parents and mothers present in the lives of their children.

This campaign uses two films where two children talk about their parents in a composition for the school. In each film, a child speaks with joy and with much knowledge of what is the day to day with the parent with whom he resides, the routines they have in common and what they most enjoy. But when it comes to talking about the parent who sees only every fifteen days, words are harder, knowledge is less, complicity is few. You notice discomfort in the room and you get the feeling of lives that are not lived entirely as they should.

It’s time to change that.
 
In Portugal, in case of divorce of the parents, the law privileges the single residence of the child with one of the parents, visiting the other usually every fifteen days. This leads to a departure from the daily life of the parent with whom the child does not habitually reside. Children deserve, have the right, to know, to be and to live, in equal conditions, with both parents.

The association argues that alternative residence for children in case of divorce is the model that best defends their interests and that must protect them.
 
This campaign aims to recall the urgency of the issue and its entry into our law.
 
Children’s Rights Demand It!

Love can also live in two houses.

Portuguese Association for Parental Equality and Children’s Rights
June 2019