On December 6th, the UN Committee on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights condemned Israeli paternity and divorce laws in a report. Israel’s Tender Years Clause grants automatic custody to women for all children less than six years old. Fathers are often required by Israeli law to pay child support payments that exceeds their incomes, to visit their children at state visitation centers during working hours, and barred from leaving the country until roughly twenty years’ worth of alimony and child support payments are paid upfront. Approximately half of Israel’s yearly suicide statistics are made up of divorced males.
On the other side of the world, Sweden, a country that gives men substantial paternity rights, including paid parental leave, is juggling its own problems. In their legendary quest for leveling all differences between men and women, some Swedish men are fighting nature itself. What’s to be done when men want to exercise their right to breastfeeding equality, but can’t due to biological factors completely out of their control?
Given the choice between being suicidal divorced Israeli fathers, or Swedish males possessed with lactation envy, we think we will stick to Thailand where Thai paternity laws are fairly clear, and gender roles are simpler: men, women, and ladyboys.
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