Brazil’s 2011 School Census estimated that more than 5.5 million Brazilian students don’t have their father’s name on their registration documents. Such a quantity of people corresponds to a number higher than the entire population of Uruguay, with 3,457,000 inhabitants (2017) or the entire population of the Brazilian State of Espírito Santo, which has 3,885,000 inhabitants (2014).

This is the reality of the children and young people we serve through our projects at Compassiva: they don’t know the real name of their fathers, rarely meet them (when they do it’s because they’re outside the prison system), and of course, don’t have their name on their registration documents.

With the objective of changing this situation, the National Magistrate General started, even if belatedly, to take action to encourage civil registration and recognition of paternity. With the Present Father Programme, the Brazilian judiciary mobilised the whole of Brazil and made the inclusion of the father’s name on over 14 thousand people’s birth certificates possible, according to the report, Present Father and Certificates 2015.

Art. 227 It is the duty of the family, society and the State to guarantee to the child, the adolescent and young person, with absolute priority, the right to life, to health, to food, to education, to leisure, to professionalisation, to culture, to dignity, to respect, to freedom, to family and community life, as well as protection from all forms of negligence, discrimination, exploitation, violence, cruelty and oppression.

Article 227 of the 1988 Federal Constitution emphasises that it is the duty of the family, society and the State to provide for the development of the child, adolescent and young person in all areas of life, so they can grow in a healthy environment and develop fully.

But what happens when the family, which is the base for the child, does not enjoy the presence of one of the fundamental members, who puts their responsibility for care on the only remaining member? It is challenging for this base to fully develop its potential for provision and care, working so that this child can build their own place in society.

Of course there are factors that can prevent a father from being present in the upbringing of his children, such as his death, but what the data from the School Census shows us is that such an absence involves a choice: the choice of not committing to the development of a human being he himself generated.  Evidently, there is abandonment on the part of mothers too, but such a situation is far more common on the part of fathers.

However, fatherhood goes far beyond the recognition of a child on a document, since recognising them is a duty. So the full extent of healthy fatherhood would be a relationship that involves commitment, care and love for their children. “The affective connection is independent, or should be independent, of gender. Children can also be raised to see their father as a carer, not only an authority figure,” comments Tulio Custódio, sociologist and curator of knowledge at Inesplorato, in a special article written about fatherhood by Tab UOL.

This means that fathers who choose to adopt understand in a practical way that affective connections are fundamental to the construction of a relationship between father and child, since there is no biological connection. They also contribute to 8.7 thousand children and adolescents getting out of the queue for adoption. Even if there are 43.6 thousand candidates waiting to adopt, the difference between the profile idealised by such candidates and the reality of the children and adolescents waiting for a home is still a major obstacle to the reduction of this enormous queue.

In this way, as a society we continue to face the challenge of supporting, stimulating and contributing to the development of fathers, so that they become more and more responsible, asserting a healthy fatherhood for themselves and their children.

Happy Father’s Day!