Family law

Fewer people in Turkey got married and divorced in 2020 compared to the previous year, the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) said on Feb. 25.

"The number of people who got married was 542,314 in 2019. It was 487,270 in 2020, a 10.1 percent decrease [since the year before]," TÜİK said in its latest statistics on marriage and divorce rates.

The International Organization of Migration (IOM) said on Monday it had set up two new safe zones for unaccompanied minors inside the migrant camps of Vagiohori, east of Thessaloniki, and Filipiada, northwest of Arta.

These areas provide educational and creative activities, sports and transportation where needed, aiming at the children's eventual integration into local societies.

Someone was taken into custody afterward

Six divorce cases have been heard in the past two days in the Regional Court of Blagoevgrad. The couples, who decided to end their relationship, officially split up and set a new anti-record. All six divorces were settled by mutual agreement, and as a motive the couples pointed to irreparable differences between them.

New legislation seeking to right many wrongs in the obsolete framework of Greek family law, particularly with regard to the custody of children in the event of separation, will be presented to cabinet by Justice Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras before heading to MPs for approval.

A bill reforming family law for the first time in about 40 years will be introduced in Parliament in the coming days, introducing joint custody of children.

The new legislation stipulates that the child can spend one-third of the time with the parent they don't live with, instead of just the occasional weekend or holiday provided for currently.

Filiation teams at the forefront of the fight against the novel coronavirus in Turkey were on duty as they greeted the new year.

Filiation staff in the northwestern Kırklareli province were among them, tracking the virus' spread and conducting PCR tests while far from their families and loved ones on New Year's Eve.

The minors were taken from the father’s custody by authorities

A group of 86 asylum seekers, most of whom had previously been staying on eastern Aegean islands, flew to Hannover, Germany on Thursday as part of a resettlement program of 1,024 asylum seekers which began last July. 

The group that left on Thursday consisted of children with serious health problems, along with family members.

The planned changes in family law, namely joint custody and the alternating residency of children between divorced parents, are widely seen rectifying a protracted injustice to fathers in Greece, while some legal experts say that it is essential for safeguards to be instituted.