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In most countries children born out of wedlock do not have the same rights as legitimate children, despite the trend in favour of greater equality between them. As a rule, it is only when they have been legitimated that illegitimate children have the same rights and obligations as the children born of the marriage. If, on the other hand, they have merely been recognized by the father, although entitled to be fed and brought up at their father's expense, they cannot claim the same rights as legitimate children, particularly in the matter of inheritance. However, they may, in certain cases, apply to the putative father for a maintenance and education allowance. In Belgium, for example, illegitimate children can exercise this right up to eighteen years of age, in Finland up to seventeen and in Guyana up to sixteen.
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Taken from the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential.
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Relevant News
Press Release
Red Carpet Fashion Designer Supports Equal Rights for Children
Designer Andres Aquino is pleased to announce his collaboration with Equal Rights for Children (ERC) in the upcoming fashion show presenting his latest collection entitled “New York Fashion Symphony”. Part of Couture Fashion Week New York’s 37th season, the show will be held at 8 pm on Saturday February 4, 2023 at the historic Prince George Ballroom, in the city’s Flatiron District. The festive show will include musical performers, the expected participation of models Bea Alonzo and Silmara Ribeiro, Daiana Canalas and Leyla Murugova, as well as the support of a growing list of sponsors. Andres Aquino is the founder and producer of Couture Fashion Week New York. A fixture of the New York fashion scene, he is an accomplished designer himself, and has shown his designs at important fashion events worldwide including in Dubai, Nepal, India, Romania, Paris, the Dominican Republic and multiple cities in the USA. He is also the founder of the Global Short Film Awards, with an annual black-tie awards gala held in Cannes, France held to coincide with the Cannes Film Festival.
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Irish Times
Title: The stigma attached to illegitimacy was not exclusively Catholic
My father was handed over a shop counter by his aunt when he was a day old. The shop in question was a Protestant draper’s, run by a man called Sam Ford; the aunt was also Protestant – and this is relevant. So when my great-aunt was unable to persuade a Protestant institution to take the baby from her, she stopped off in Arklow on the way home to Ballycanew, where her brother was a respectable postmaster. There she put her basket (shades of Lady Bracknell here) on the counter and said wearily, “I don’t know what I’m going to do with this baby.” Fortunately, the shop assistant (a Catholic) was there to help. “My sister doesn’t have a baby”, she said. “She’ll take him”.
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Business World
Title: Love children may inherit from their grandparents
THE SUPREME COURT (SC) has allowed children to inherit from their grandparents and other direct ascendants regardless of their parents’ marital status. In a statement on Thursday, the tribunal said it has revisited the “Iron Curtain” rule under the Civil Code, which barred love children from inheriting from their legitimate half-siblings and relatives of their parents.
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Unbelievable Facts
Title: 10 ILLEGITIMATE CHILDREN WHO GREW UP TO BE INFLUENTIAL PEOPLE
It is a well-known fact that a child’s parentage has a great effect on their upbringing. So, when it comes to illegitimate children, they are often frowned upon by society. But there are many instances in history when an illegitimate child has managed to overcome the stigma of their birth and achieved great success. In this article, we have brought ten such illegitimate children who grew up to be influential people.
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Reader's Digest
Title: Growing Up Illegitimate: A Life In The Shadow Of Stigma
I was born in 1967 to parents who loved me. How do I know they loved me? Well, if they didn’t, they would have taken the easy way out. They would have aborted me and lived an easy life, free of stigma. But they didn’t. Instead, they decided to try and face society the best way they could and let me come into this world. For this I shall be ever grateful, because today, I have a wonderful husband and two amazing children simply because … they let me live.
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Asia News
Title: Philippine Supreme Court rules that children born out of wedlock can also inherit
The Supreme Court of the Philippines unanimously ruled that children born out of wedlock have the right to inherit.
In a statement, the Supreme Court Public Information Office says that the court “reinterpreted article 992 of the civil code, which prohibits nonmarital children from inheriting from their siblings who are marital children, as well as relatives of [their] father or mother.”
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Naya Daur
Title: Who Is Responsible For The Rights Of “Illegitimate” Children In Pakistan?
While parents are seen as main caregivers for children, it is also seen as the primary duty of the state to provide protection to women and children, which is expressly signified in article 35 of the Constitution of Pakistan. In fact, the judiciary has interpreted the intention and objective of Article 35 to be the protection of the liberty and dignity of the child and ensuring that the child is brought up in a favorable social environment so as to make them good citizens.
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The National News
Title: ‘Illegitimate’ kids need support, not stigmatisation
he case of Mylene Rapada, the daughter of a Filipina mother who is searching for her Emirati father, brings attention to a stigmatized segment of society: illegitimate children. Those children are often looked down upon and treated as if guilty of some crime.
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Colombia News
Title: 84% of Colombia’s children are born out of wedlock
Eighty-four percent of Colombia’s children were born outside of marriage, a record in Latin America, according to a global study.
The report, prepared by the Child Trends and Social Trends Institute gathered information from 49 countries.
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BBC News
Title: China's two-child policy: Single mothers left out
China's announcement that it is ending its decades-long one-child policy is good news for married couples who want to have two children. But if you're an unmarried woman, forget about it, writes author Leta Hong Fincher.
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The Economic Times
Title: Stranded in Kuwait, Indian kids are nobody’s children
Born out of wedlock and with no maternity record in hospitals, scores of Indian children stranded in Kuwait are on the edge. They are neither Kuwaiti citizens nor Indians and they cannot get a passport to avail the amnesty handed out to illegal workers by the Kuwait government.