Express Divorce only increasing marital breakdown, pro-family group laments

Madrid, Spain, Jul 5, 2010 / 20:17 pm

Spain’s Institute of Family Policy (IPF) critiqued the “Express Divorce,” or rapid divorce law, which was implemented in 2005, because the policy has created an increase of 4.8 percent in marital ruptures in the first three months of 2010 as compared to the same period in 2009.

Despite the economic downturn and the decrease in the number of marriages, 33,103 marriages broke down in the first quarter of 2010, IPF reported. That is 1,500 more than the same period of 2009, and an increase of 4.8 percent.

This is indicative of “a desolate outlook for families and the evident failure of the “Express Divorce” law, IPF declared.

“Quarter after quarter, the breakdown of marriages continues to grow without any action on the part of the administration to avoid it, or at least to dampen it,” the group lamented.

IPF said that these statistics show that the dissolution of marriages continues to be the primary problem that Spanish families face. “The fact that ever four minutes, a marriage in Spain falls apart is a worrisome fact,” IPF indicated. “It should make us reflect on what is happening in Spanish society.”

Faced with this fact, the president of IPF, Eduardo Hertfelder, insisted up on the necessity of promoting and guaranteeing “the right of children and parents to marital stability.”

Hertfelder said that is was a fundamental task of the government, which cannot remain indifferent in the face of the collapse of so many marriages. “The means to combat the primary problem that families suffer, as well as an authentic change in family policy, is therefore necessary,” he stated.