After a six-year long legal battle, a court in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo has authorized a child to be officially registered as the child of three fathers and one mother.
Ana Paula Morbeck, the lawyer who represents the now ten-year-old child, told the media that the child was regularly registered at birth with his biological father and mother.
However, due to his biological parents’ “complex and inconsistent” marriage, the paternal uncle and his husband helped to take care of the boy, the lawyer explained.
“What was supposed to be sporadic became routine, and this created an emotional bonding with the then-baby,” Morbeck said. After his biological parents divorced, the child went to live full-time with his uncle and his husband.
“They took care of his health, education, food, recreation, and they also gave him all the love and security for his healthy development,” the lawyer said.
As the child started school, he expressed his desire to get formal recognition for what he believed to be true: that he had three fathers.
The lawyer explained that the family had to file a lawsuit in 2019 to reach this recognition, but the request was initially denied by the local court, who ruled that the change in paternal custody would only be possible through adoption.
“That wasn’t what the family wanted, because the child recognizes his biological parents and considers them as such, despite having strong bonds with his socio-affective parents,” Morbeck said.
On January 21, another tribunal ruled in the family’s favour and ordered the registration of the same-sex couple as legal parents for the boy, who now has three official fathers and one mother.
The family’s lawyer stressed that the love, affection, and care, the child felt for his uncle and his husband were the basis of the court’s decision.
“A decision like this recognizes that families come in many forms, many types, and strengthens bonds of affection,” Morbeck told CNN Brasil.
Same-sex adoption has been legal in Brazil since 2010.
