Public day care centres remained closed across Germany on Monday morning as workers staged a second day of strikes to pressure state employers into better wage and health care benefits.
Public day care workers began an open-ended strike in five German states on Friday in an ongoing wage and healthcare dispute. Parents were forced to find last-minute alternatives or stay home from work.
After years of debate, the German parliament voted late on Wednesday to require women seeking late-term abortions to delay the procedure by three days and have an official consultation with a doctor.
German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen has made parental leave benefits more flexible during the recession so that new families don’t have to fear leaving the workforce in a cutthroat job market, daily <i>Bild</i> reported on Friday.
Italian authorities patrolled border crossings, train stations and airports Wednesday in a frantic international search for a German couple who abandoned their children at a restaurant at the weekend.
The German government has signed agreements with key internet service providers (ISP’s) to block access to child porn sites, Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday.
In the latest dispatch of Portnoy’s Stammtisch, The Local’s column about life in Germany, Portnoy explains why the German-invented Easter bunny is an appropriate symbol in a country where the birth rate is tanking and succesful families with children are scorned.
Some kids might resist exposure to classical music, but as The Local’s <b>Rhea Wessel</b> reports, the town of Kronberg offers a stunning fairy-tale atmosphere that will inspire their imaginations and please grown-ups too.
The German cabinet on Wednesday approved a plan to fight child pornography by requiring internet service providers (ISPs) to work with law enforcement and block questionable content, but some critics say the initiative won’t be enough.
The European Union has proposed increasing minimum maternity leave from 14 to 18 weeks, but the German Family Ministry told The Local on Tuesday that current rules are sufficient despite the country's meagre birthrate.
A mother and her three children are dead after their Moers apartment caught fire early on Wednesday morning, police in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia said.
Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen has confirmed that Germans are having more children, saying that the tough economic situation is prompting growing numbers to seek security within the family.
Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen announced this week that Germany will soon require internet service providers (ISPs) to block child pornography sites using a system already in place in other EU countries, but some critics fear it could be used to censor the web in the future.
Children playing in a Nordhackstedt barn on Wednesday afternoon found a hypothermic baby girl in one of the stalls, daily <i>Flensburger Tageblatt</i> reported on Thursday.
Head of the parliamentary commission for children Diana Golze wants to limit lawsuits against playgrounds and other children’s facilities, daily <i>Berliner Zeitung</i> reported on Thursday.
The parents of the German-Afghan victim of an “honour killing” by her brother last year refused to testify in a Hamburg court on Monday. Meanwhile state prosecutors have also accused her father of abuse.
German Family Minister Ursula von der Leyen called on politicians and economic leaders to “work hard” towards helping people reconcile work and family commitments in the new year.
The amount of parental leave benefits doled out for moms and dads in the formerly communist eastern German states is significantly lower than the national average, the Federal Statistics Office (Destatis) reported on Wednesday.
