Parliament enacted Saturday legal changes that would allow the new husband of a remarried woman to assume paternity of children born within 300 days of divorce from her previous partner.
The first change to the century-old Civil Code provisions regarding paternity and marriage aims to address the issue of divorced women leaving their children off family registers to avoid former husbands being recognized as fathers, leading to difficulties for children to access health and other services.
The revised code, which was passed Saturday by a majority vote in a House of Councillors plenary session, will also scrap a rule, long considered discriminatory, that bans women from remarrying within 100 days of a divorce.