The number of Brazilian children registered only by their mothers has increased over the past seven years. The data comes from the Association of Civil Registry Officers (Arpen), responsible for the notary offices.

In 2016, the first year with consolidated numbers, 139.7 thousand of the 2.9 million newborns were registered without the father's name, which represents 5%. In 2023, this number rose to 173.6 thousand out of 2.6 million, totaling 7%.

During this period, there was also an increase in paternity recognitions. They went from 14.7 thousand in 2016 to 35.4 thousand in 2023, a variation of 141%.

Gustavo Kloh, a master's in civil law from the State University of Rio de Janeiro and a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, believes that the recognitions are mainly the result of hard work by public agencies in several states.

In São Paulo, for example, there is the "Find Your Father Here" program. The goal is to conduct paternity investigations with the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Institute of Social Medicine and Criminology, which conducts DNA tests free of charge.

Regarding the data on single mothers, the expert analyzes that this is part of a historical context of structural machismo.