Adachi Ward, Tokyo, has granted a residence certificate to a newborn as an exceptional case but refuses to accept her birth registration due to an archaic law that acknowledges paternity by the mother's ex-husband instead of her current spouse, the baby's biological father.
The ward said it could not accept the birth registration because Article 772 of the Civil Code, which took effect in 1898, considers a baby born within 300 days of a divorce to be the child of the ex-husband.
A ward official said the residence certificate was granted as a special case so the girl can get administrative services, including medical exams.
The mother became pregnant after divorcing her husband last year and gave birth less than 300 days later.
She submitted the birth registration Feb. 13, citing her current husband as the baby's father, instead of her ex-husband, but the ward wouldn't accept it.
The decision to grant a residence certificate "was made on humanitarian grounds," the official said.
While Japan's divorce rate has seen a rise, an increasing number of people are calling for the Civil Code's Article 772 to be revised mainly because a baby is still registered as the child of an ex-husband in the case of premature birth even if the child is actually that of another man.
They also argue that mothers face the burden of seeking family court mediation to get children registered under their real fathers. Due to the system, some women opt not to register their children born within 300 days after a divorce, according to a citizens' group working on the issue, because they do not want to the children to be registered as being offspring of their ex-husbands.
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