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Paternity fraud


Paternity fraud, also known as child identity fraud,misattributed paternity or paternal discrepancy, is a type of fraud that occurs when, in a non-paternity event, a mother names a man to be the biological father of a child, when she knows or suspects that he is not the biological father. The modern concept of paternity fraud is related to the historical understanding of adultery.

In the United Kingdom, paternity fraud, like adultery, is not a criminal offence except in the case of the lineage of the children of the British monarch under the Treason Act 1351 where the adulterers are punishable as adultering against the lineage of the King with the King's "companion, ... or the wife of the King's eldest son and heir". In all other cases, only making a false statement on a public document is a criminal offence, including naming someone who is not the biological father. As of 2008 nobody had been prosecuted in a case involving paternity fraud. A mother is permitted to not state the name of the biological father if she does not know it. Paternity fraud is a form of misattributed paternity.

New laws and guidelines have been proposed or enacted aided in part, or in reaction to, publicity raised by father's rights groups, especially since the advent of DNA testing. The term has been given significant coverage by US activists and authors Tom Leykis,Ned Holstein and Glenn Sacks.

Research published in 2016 indicated that one in 50 British fathers is raising a child which he thinks is his own but actually is the biological child of another man, and whose birth reflects the high incidence of female infidelity, between 5 and 27% in women under 30.

A 2005 scientific review of international published studies of paternal discrepancy found a range in incidence, around the world, from 0.8% to 30% (median 3.7%). However, as many of the studies were conducted between the 1950s and the 1980s, some numbers may not be reliable due to inaccuracies in the scientific testing methods and procedures used at the time. The latest studies, ranging in date from 1991 to 1999, quote the following incidence rates: 4.0% (Canada), 2.8% (France), 1.4% and 1.6% (UK), and 11.8% (Mexico), 0.8% (Switzerland). These numbers suggest that the widely quoted and unsubstantiated figure of 10% of non-paternal events is an overestimate. However, this number may have been inaccurately circulated due to the following: in studies that solely looked at couples who obtained paternity testing because paternity was being disputed, there are higher levels; an incidence of 17% to 33% (median of 26.9%). Most at risk were those born to younger parents, to unmarried couples and those of lower socio-economic status, or from certain cultural groups.


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