Every year around 40,000 couples in Belgium get married and about 30,000 get divorced (32,606 in 2009, of which 14,991 lived in Flanders). Two divorces out of three involve children, with about 35,000 children every year being affected.

Belgium does not have the highest number of divorces in absolute terms, but it does have most when compared to the number of marriages. In Belgium there are 4.1 marriages for every 1,000 head of population, and three divorces, for a ratio of 4.1/3. In second place, Denmark has a ratio of 6/2.7, followed by Finland at 5.6/2.5. The EU average, according to figures from 2007, is 4.4/2.

One major conclusion, according to Christine Van Peer of the government's research department, which coordinated the study, is that attempts to change the law to make the divorce process simpler and easier have not been successful. While the judicial process itself has indeed been made shorter, she said, removing a number of matters from the consideration of the court has done nothing to remove the causes of conflict, while taking away the one forum to resolve them.

"The majority of conflicts now take place outside the courtroom," Van Peer said, including disputes over property and child custody. Despite changes in the law - the latest in 2007 - the whole process still takes as long as it did in 1994: an average of 18 months.

The 2007 law allowed for co- parenting, in which children would be able to share their time between parents. However, that has led to the opposite of what was intended by the law, which was to increase feelings of stability and security on the part of the child. Sharing arrangements in fact often lead to conflict between parents. In one and four cases, the parents never see each other at all.

While the most common arrangement for custody sharing is for each parent to take the child every other week, the average number of moves from one parental home to the other in a month is between five and six, with some children moving eight times or more.

According to a study by Professor Koen Matthijs of the KUL's Centre for Population and Family Research, half of all children from families where the parents are divorced have learning problems enough to cause them to repeat a year of school or to change to an easier course of studies.

Of children who live with both parents, 64% begin secondary school following the general humanities curriculum known as ASO. Among children living with one parent, the figure is 54%. At the other end of the school career, about half of all students living in homes with both parents leave school with a diploma; but for children of single parents, only 22% obtain a diploma.

Meanwhile, about one in five marriages investigated last year by the Department of Foreigner Affairs - 9,133 out of a total of 43,000 - was found to be a marriage of convenience contracted in order to allow one of the parties to enter or stay in the country. The department admitted the true figure was probably greater. It also reported a rise in the number of letters received from anonymous neighbours or even family members drawing attention to suspicious marriages.