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A LAWYER with experience in divorce proceedings has called for the courts to have direct links with the Immigration Department’s database after a woman alleged that her estranged husband defied a custody order and fled the country with her three-year old daughter.
S. Raveentharan said that to prevent abuse of the court system, all rulings related to orders and directives on physical distancing and visitation rights must be relayed to the Immigration Department.
"This will prevent any errant spouse from fleeing the country with their children,” he said in an interview.
“In matters of family law, there is often the emotional element dictating the conduct of the parents or child. We need to be extra careful when dealing with such situations."
Raveentharan told The Vibes that the police and the immigration authorities must work hand in glove with court officials to prevent any abuse from occurring.
Earlier, a bank officer relayed her plight to the media, saying that she is now praying that the authorities can locate her daughter, as despite a court order for her husband to surrender the girl, both are no longer in the country.
The woman in her thirties believes that the husband is in Singapore with his immediate family.
Her marriage was apparently in ruins where up to 26 police reports were allegedly lodged by her or her lawyer in relation to the move to seek separation from her husband.
As a result, she was granted custody of their only child amid divorce proceedings at the Shah Alam High Court.
According to the woman, her husband was allowed by the court visitation rights of twice a month with each visit confined to seven hours in a public venue such as a shopping mall.
She claimed that her husband fled with her daughter from a mall along Gurney Drive in George Town on September 2.
That evening, while waiting for her daughter to return, her family received a text message from her husband that he and the girl had driven on to Kuala Lumpur, she claimed.
She then lodged a report at the nearby Pulau Tikus police station.
She further claimed that despite being told that she had custody of her child, an officer investigating her case said she should not be concerned since the child was not kidnapped, as the child was with the father.
After several attempts to contact her husband, she contacted her divorce lawyer to initiate action to reclaim her child on October 28.
She alleged that the husband and his family refused to hand over the child.
The husband also ignored another court order to return the child by November 5 and two days later, he went absent from the court hearing, she claimed.
“I suspected they might have left the country, since he and his family were not at home,” she said.
Her suspicion came true as checks with the immigration authorities revealed that her husband managed to obtain a passport for the child, and records indicated that they left for Singapore through the Tuas Second Link immigration crossing.
The woman said that she went to Singapore in search of her daughter, and also lodged a report there.
She was informed that the Singaporean authorities can only act if there is a directive from their Malaysian counterparts.
She said that she has grown increasingly frustrated, as there has not been any breakthrough in the case of her missing child for the past four months.
Attempts are underway to contact both the Malaysian and Singaporean police on how best the case can be resolved.
In the meantime, the woman is appealing to the authorities and her estranged husband to return her child, who is an innocent three-year-old, who does not know what is going on.
Raveentharan urged the immigration authorities to make a ruling that both parents must be present if an underage child is applying for a passport unless one spouse can prove that they are divorced.
This will prevent a recurrence of such a heartbreaking episode, he said. – The Vibes, December 29, 2023.
