New laws: Childcare, banking secrecy, labelling

Switzerland rang in 2017 with a wide range of new laws that affect everyone from separated parents and dog owners to bankers and Swiss manufacturers. Childcare Swiss lawmakers want children of separated parents to receive the same level of maintenance (both cash and in-kind contributions) regardless of whether the parents are or were married. Financial support for underage children takes precedence ahead of other maintenance claims. The new law also divides pension assets more equally in divorce. One of the issues that lawmakers wanted to remedy is reflected in figures cited during their debate in parliament. Those showed that 16.9% of single-parent households received social assistance in 2009, and more than 95% of the cases involved women with children. Swiss psychologist Allan Guggenbühl told swissinfo.ch the law correctly equates all children, regardless of the marital status of the parents, but there could be problems applying it to children born in unstable ...