“More and more Muslim parents decide to kidnap in custody battle”
Published on: Monday 24 July 2023
From: Malaysia Mail
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One report states that child abduction will not only affect the parents who are suddenly left behind, but more importantly the child who will be taken away from home and forced into heavy contact with family and friends. (Malay Mail file image for general illustration)
Kuala Lumpur: Muslim parents in Malaysia were more concerned about their child being abducted and taken away by the other parent in 2021 and 2022 compared to previous years, the latest data from Sisters in Islam (SIS) shows. In its 2022 report on its free legal advice service Telenisa on Islamic family law, SIS said that Muslim parents seeking child custody help usually mention court custody disputes, visitation rights and child abduction.
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But among parents facing custody battles, SIS found that the proportion of parents who mentioned custody disputes dropped dramatically: from 52 percent in 2020 to just 1 percent in 2021 and zero percent in 2022. Instead, the proportion of parents who mentioned child abduction disputes increased from 9 percent in 2020 to 29 percent (2021) and 24 percent (2022). Even in previous years, a lower percentage of child abduction cases were recorded, at 14.7 percent (2017), 11 percent (2018), and 10 percent (2019), according to Telenisa’s records. This means that concerns about child abduction in 2021 and 2022 are at an all-time high these six years.
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Based on data for 2020-2022, SIS executive director Rozana Isa said parents “take the risk of becoming even more desperate and eventually engaging in violations of rights and laws.” “The authorities should address this phenomenon with more awareness and wisdom as to why parents make such decisions.” The most appropriate measures must be identified to ensure protection of the child’s well-being. It is always the welfare and rights of the child that are compromised in the long run,” she said in the Telenisa Statistics and Findings 2022 report, released on June 22.
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What is Child Abduction and Why Do Parents Commit It?
In the 2022 Telenisa report, child abduction was described as abducting a child with the intention of separating it from either the mother or father, who has custody of the child. Telenisa said that it is becoming increasingly common for parents to kidnap their own children to another country. Aside from increasing the risk of parents abducting their own child in a custody battle, other possible contributing factors, according to SIS, include: domestic violence; a parent’s dissatisfaction with the court’s custody decision; the other parent threatens to elope with the child; the subsequent reaction to threats from the other parent; or the other country’s custody order is inconclusive. SIS said that if there is a possibility that the other parent may have abducted the child, the parent who has custody of the child should file a complaint with the police as soon as possible. “Police will attempt to locate and rescue the child, including arresting the kidnapper,” said its 2022 report. In previous Telenisa reports, the change in year-to-year trends in parents’ top custody concerns may be due to various factors, such as more custody disputes in 2020 as the ban on travel between states during the Covid-19 pandemic had prevented the parent with visitation rights from visiting their children, and also reticence of the other Parent to allow visits due to risk of Covid-19 infections. Regarding the worrying increase in child abduction cases from 9 percent in 2020 to 29 percent in 2021, SIS had previously stated that “many parents are desperate for immediate action regarding their children” given the scarce financial burden and time constraints of taking custody disputes to court. “Often they take matters into their own hands by abducting their own child and separating them completely from the other parent. Such distress affects the visit by cutting off communication between the child and the opposing parent,” SIS had said in its 2021 Telenisa report, adding that such behavior severely affects the child’s parenting and emotional growth. “Co-parenting should be learned and understood by both parents to prevent children becoming victims of unresolved adult problems,” SIS said. In its 2017 and 2018 Telenisa reports, SIS found that custody battles “bring out the worst” for some parents who end up abducting the child from the parent who has custody, adding that they either abduct the children when they are at school or do not send the children back to their guardians’ homes after their time with the children.
What impact will the kidnapped child have?
In the 2022 report, SIS said child abduction will not only hit the suddenly abandoned parent, but more importantly the child who has been taken away from home and forced into heavy contact with family and friends. It states that children abducted by their own parents are like “refugees” and, possibly due to the need to hide, will not receive an adequate education and are also more likely to face economic, social, political and legal difficulties. The SIS said abducted children are “forced to live a new life in a new environment, especially when they are taken to a foreign country with its own challenges due to cultural, religious and language barriers. This hardship can profoundly traumatize the child.” “This act of desperation does more harm than good to the child,” it said, adding that separation anxiety and being separated from the other parent could leave a mark on the child’s life. The SIS said legal action should be taken in cases of child abduction by a parent, particularly in cases where the child is taken from Malaysia. Since 2003, SIS, through Telenisa, has offered free legal advice to Muslim women and men on their legal rights under Islamic family law and Sharia violations laws. These Islamic family law matters include divorce, polygamy, spousal and child support, matrimonial property regimes and child custody. Telenisa can be reached on 012-812 3424 Monday to Friday from 10am to 5pm by phone, video call and WhatsApp, personal consultations are available by appointment. Over the years, there have been several high-profile cases in Malaysia of parents abducting and depriving their estranged spouse’s children after the marriage failed and one of the spouses converted to Islam, including Ipoh-based Hindu mother M. Indira Gandhi, whose daughter was abducted by her Muslim-converted husband in 2009; Hindu mother S. Deepa, whose son was kidnapped by her Muslim ex-husband in 2014 after winning custody of their two children in a civil court in Seremban; and Hindu mother Loh Siew Hong, whose Muslim ex-husband emigrated with her three children in 2019, leaving them separated for years before reuniting with them in 2022. Indira still hopes to be reunited with her daughter, who is believed to have been abducted from Malaysia by the ex-husband, while the federal court ruled in 2016 to split custody of the two children between Deepa and her ex-husband, while both later agreed to allow them to be associated with the children in regular joint meetings. A Malaysian non-Muslim mother, identified only as W, was able to see her four children again in September 2022, whom her Malaysian and Muslim ex-husband had secretly taken to Indonesia in 2019. Thai national Anna Leelertwongpakdee also recently expressed concern over how her estranged husband managed to smuggle their four-year-old daughter across Thailand’s borders into Malaysia, allegedly without proper papers. She claimed the child was kidnapped after the ex-husband failed to return the toddler to her after his two-day visit period expired in April.
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