Law on Paternity, Maternity and Filiation

This law reforms the Haitian law of parentage - the establishment of paternity, maternity and filiation - superseding provisions of the nineteenth-century Civil Code that distinguished between children born within and outside marriage. The reform bears directly on inheritance, on the civil registration of births, and on the position of the very large share of Haitian children born to unmarried parents. The gazette issue in which it appears is a coherent package on children's rights: alongside the promulgation of this law it carries the decree ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and the decree ratifying the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Published in Le Moniteur, 169th year, No. 105, Wednesday 4 June 2014.