Original Tagesanzeiger article 
At the anti-feminism conference it was denounced that in only 0.05 percent of all divorces the father is awarded custody.
Is this number correct? It is true that sole custody is only awarded to a father in very specific situations.
In what situations? For example, if the mother moves abroad and the children cannot be expected to move. Or if the mother is an addict or suffers from a serious mental disorder. In practice, does it often happen that the father wants to exercise sole custody?
No, that's rare.
However, it can definitely be allocated to the father if the child chooses the father himself. However, it must then be clarified whether the father meets the requirements for parental custody, how and when he looked after the child and what his motives are for continuing to do so.
Will this be clarified just as carefully with the mother?
Yes definitely.
The father can also submit a request for clarification. It has been possible to obtain joint custody for ten years.
Is this often requested? Shared parental custody is much more common today than it was three to four years ago.
30 to 50 percent of younger parents want this. And does it actually work?
Usually it seems to work.
But it can also happen that the rift between the parents is so deep that a conversation about visitation or the needs of the children in their free time always turns into a conflict. Without trust that the other parent may do things differently but also do it well, shared parental custody will not work. But if the mothers don't agree, the man has no chance.
Don't women have the better cards when it comes to divorce? That is pointedly not true;
It always depends on the individual situation. In the vast majority of cases, the woman primarily took care of the children according to the distribution of roles. Then of course the women have the better cards, because why should this division change after the divorce? In my experience, for couples who have already cared for the children together, the court does not give preference to either parent, but rather focuses
exclusively on the best interests of the child.
I have never experienced a case myself where I felt the court misplaced the child. And what role does money play?
You often hear that the man has to pay so much that he barely has enough to live on - let alone enter into a new relationship. Here, too, one should not generalize.
What is true: The court takes great care to ensure that the woman does not end up in distress. However, the Federal Court stated that the man never fell below the subsistence level. So, unlike women, he doesn't run the risk of becoming dependent on care. But it is certainly true that things can get tight financially if he wants to start a new family. * Lawyer Heidi Frick works at the Central Office for Marriage and Family Counseling in Zurich.

Comment VeV Switzerland 
Attorney Frick has probably not represented men for a long time. Or maybe she doesn't do that out of principle. In any case, her theses are so far-fetched and unworldly that one has to wonder where she gets her knowledge from.

Fathers who apply for sole custody are regularly punished by our courts, accused of lack of cooperation and even worse things. In addition, most men do not want sole custody, but rather joint custody because they have long been used to doing things together in the working world and have long understood that this is the best way to do it. However, mothers regularly refuse to cooperate, which absolutely reliably leads to the mother ultimately receiving sole custody, just as her lawyer (or her lawyer?) predicted. Our system today is designed in such a way that it doesn't matter whether the father wants to get involved or not - what matters is what the mother wants. This thesis can be proven a hundred times over.

It is also almost a cheek to demand that a father has to be examined in detail before the children are assigned to him. This means nothing less than that men are generally considered incapable of caring for children. Although Ms. Frick claims that mothers are also examined, she certainly knows that this is rejected by the court in the vast majority of cases.

Unfortunately, it is still the case that lawyers often stir up arguments instead of ensuring that the parents find a viable solution together. For me, provocative statements like Ms. Frick's belong in the war cries category and should have no place in a serious discussion.

Anti-feminism is not the right way, just as feminism is not the right way. Only when we learn and understand that we have to tackle things together will we take a step forward.

Probably not everyone will be able to take this step.

Oliver Hunziker
President VeV Switzerland

I believe that it is our primary duty to support conflicting parents and to strengthen their parenting skills so that they can recognize the needs of their children and work together for their optimal further development. Experience has shown that this is possible even where partnership disagreements persist. The willingness of quarreling parents to cooperate is largely determined by the respective social norms and values. If it is one day considered completely normal for children to be cared for together after a divorce, this will also become normal and therefore a matter of course for most parents who separate.  We should ensure that divorced parents and their children can live this normality as soon as possible. For the benefit of children, mothers and fathers and to relieve the burden on courts, authorities, offices and lawyers.  Max PeterFamily mediator SVM/SDM