A law abolishing illegitimacy will come into effect on Monday.

The Children Amendment Act 2002 amends the existing Children Act 1998 by abolishing illegitimacy and requiring joint parental care and support for children irrespective of the marital status of their parents.

Minister of Health and Family Services Patrice Minors said the new Act will allow all children to enjoy the same status in law as it relates to their parents.

?This will in turn provide for the involvement of all parents in the upbringing of children and allow for the sharing of rights and responsibilities conducive to each child?s positive development,? said Mrs. Minors.

?Bermuda?s children deserve no less.?

Minister Minors said the enactment of the Children Amendment Act 2002 will end the discriminatory practices both the Legitimacy Act 1933 and the Affiliation Act 1976.

?Whereas the Legitimacy Act 1933 sanctions illegitimacy, and the Affiliation Act restricted unmarried mothers to pursue exclusively financial support from fathers of their children,? said Mrs. Minors.

?The child?s father was to have no substantive connection in law to the child in life or death, and shared no parental relationship, rights or responsibilities for the child.?

She said a passage of the Illegitimate Children?s Act 1947, which preceded the Affiliation Act, unmarried parents suffered unequal treatment in law compared to parents who were married.

?Unmarried fathers for example, were given a separate distinction under the law and were called putative fathers,? said the Minister.

?A putative father was barred from parental custody even if the mother died.

?In instances where he managed to get custody of the child, he could not apply to the courts for support as married fathers could.

?In fact, after an amendment to the Affiliation Act, putative fathers were were able to apply to the courts for access, but access was so loosely defined that it was often at the whim of the custodian even after the court ordered it.?

She said under the previous law. unmarried mothers in turn necessarily became single parents as their counterparts were not recognised in that capacity by law.