(c) Landbote May 27, 2011.
By Karin Landolt The Federal Council has decided to advance joint parental custody as a rule more quickly than planned. For men's organizations, this is "the beginning of a new gender discussion."
In January, Justice Minister Simonetta Sommaruga (SP) wanted to link the change in the law, which would have put parents on the same level in the event of a divorce, with the urgently needed new regulation of family maintenance payments. Women's organizations in particular had called for this because divorce represents a poverty trap, especially for mothers. This connection in turn outraged the association for shared parenthood (Gecobi), which was initiated by divorcing fathers and advocates for a good parent-child relationship even after a separation or divorce. “We recognize that there is a need for improvements in maintenance payments,” says its president Oliver Hunziker, who has been actively fighting for shared custody as a rule for seven years. “But this issue would probably have delayed the introduction of joint custody for several more years.”
Gecobi and with her the men's organizations were heard. Sommaruga convened a round table in April to hear the voices of all stakeholders. And now the two templates are to be decoupled; the introduction of joint custody is on the home stretch.
Maintenance payments open
The fact that a Federal Council with a majority of women has taken on men's concerns and acted accordingly leaves Hunziker cool. “I expect the Federal Council to make Swiss policy and not gender policy and therefore act objectively. The gender distribution shouldn’t play a role, and that’s what happened.” The joint parental responsibility was discussed to the end and everyone agreed, said Hunziker. On the other hand, the area of maintenance payments has hardly been discussed yet. “It would have been a fatal sign for divorced fathers, but also in terms of equality between men and women, if the custody decision had been pushed aside.”
The men's organizations naturally wanted to lend a hand when it came to child support payments, the regulation of which usually affects the mother. But it cannot simply be a matter of the divorced fathers being additionally fleeced, but rather of the burden being distributed fairly. Just as Hunziker imagines in divorce law that parents are generally responsible for 50 percent of care, financial support should also be regulated. “And those who look after more receive more maintenance from the other parent.” For him, the success regarding joint custody is “just the beginning of a range of changes in relation to gender equality”.
This attitude of equality no longer only means that women are equal in their rights and opportunities, but are also held responsible for financial support of the family. In keeping with the attitude of the young generation of SP women, who recently announced their intention to overturn the “outdated attitude of the older generation of SP women” who always “saw women as victims and men as perpetrators”. They also demanded that women and men tackle gender issues together.
“Of course, women and men should shape the future together,” says Jacqueline Fehr, who, as an established Swiss politician, is already considered old news by the emerging generation of SP and Juso women. Not least because she fought against shared parental custody as a rule for a long time and is still skeptical about the change in the law today. Nevertheless, she doesn't seem to want to stand in the way of the younger generation when she says - as she did recently at a podium: "It's good if young women no longer see themselves as victims and, together with young men, change gender relations and partnership policy want to define." In any case, she would be “happy” when the day came when the SP abolished its women’s section, which was once called up for the fight for equality, because it was no longer needed.