If you've just moved here with family, please be aware of NZ stance on relocation

[norightsnz]

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but I'm trying to get this message out to as many folk as I can.

If you've just moved here with your partner and kids and the relationship goes pear-shaped and you want to go back home, but your partner doesn't. You're stuck here til your kids turn sixteen.

There's an ever-increasing community of stuck parents all over NZ.

We all wish we'd known this before we stepped on the plane.

Just getting the message out there. For the skeptics, check out www.norightsnz.co.nz where we've been documenting our stories, and relocation rulings.

Neither this post nor your website give enough factual information to make any sense

Well ive not read the website but the post made sense to me.

Did you read the same post I did? It makes perfect sense

This isn't specific to NZ though. I assume you can still relocate if you want. You just can't take your children without the other parent's consent. That's absolutely standard if wanting to move children to a different country where they'd be separated from a parent. I'd be surprised if people who relocate internationally aren't aware of this.

This is surely common sense? Who would think that they could take their children halfway across the world without the other parent's permission?

I'm guessing "here" is NZ in your post.
It's not something specific to NZ. It is a global thing - once kids are habitually resident somewhere, one parent cannot just pack up and move elsewhere in the world.
I hope your issues are resolved amicably.

I know Mighty, right?! It boggles my mind that any parent think they could do this. But perhaps I'm just more aware because I moved to another country when I met ex DH to marry him. I knew I'd never be able to return home once we had DC if we split because I couldn't remove them from the country we lived in as a family. This was all within Europe. Heck, in many circumstances you would even be prevented to move within the UK. So surely this can't be a surprise to anyone.

Would it be the same if you were in the UK and you wanted to take e kids to NZ?

Are the kids happy there?

Yes, if her kids were habitual residents in the UK and she wanted to move them to NZ she also couldn't do so without the other parent's consent. It really isn't specific to NZ. What makes being stuck in NZ worse though is the distance to home I assume. Not as easy to just have more holidays back home etc.

The website isn't good. I'd like to read actually case stories not weird memes and a video that is so general

Yes, NZ and 101 other countries. Common sense to me.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Convention_on_the_Civil_Aspects_of_International_Child_Abduction

I have sympathy for your situation OP but other posters are correct, this is not a matter that is exclusive to NZ. Any time a couple have different nationalities and have kids together and then break up, it's going to be difficult to resolve the situation.

Most countries' judiciaries will give the parent who is a national of that country, where the children were born, the default right to keep their children in the country of their birth. I'm fairly sure the UK would do so if the situation were reversed.

I'm fairly surprised that this didn't occur to you before you relocated and had kids overseas?

I wonder if your kids will be able to express a preference at some point, and if that will carry any weight with the court? Do try to look on the bright side, the UK is a total mess at the moment, NZ is beautiful. Wish you all the best.

Are you the poster who posted about being envious of your daughter/having a generally useless husband? If so, I can see why you’d want to leave, but I don’t see that you’re interested in making any real changes anyway. If not, is there any practical steps you can take? You can separate even though you can’t relocate.

Yep, I know someone this has happened to.

If you want your website to be taken seriously, you need to make it look more professional. The spelling and grammar are atrocious.

You also don’t seem to address the protection that this gives to a lot of women.

A law that prevents you the separation of children from their parents. Whatever will they think of next? 🤔

Sorry if it's your creation op but that website is awful.

It's just a random collection of rants and some of sentences make no sense. There's no real useful information I could find - I'm none the wiser after looking at several pages.

OP, as people have already said, it works both ways. My NZ friend was having serious issues with her husband (who is a prize twat). They were living in the UK and she continued with the relationship and managed to persuade him to move to NZ as a family because she knew that if they didn’t, she would not be able to leave the UK with her children.

This is not unique to New Zealand, OP.

Also, you seem to think you are addressing other New Zealanders. Mumsnet is almost entirely people in the UK.

why are you bothered

Why are there so many cats?

Same in the EU OP. You can leave if you have permission from the other parent. The idea is that it supports the rights if the children not to be moved to another country and face the inevitable different relationship with the other parent. And that's all good.

In reality, it places the foreign parent in a very vulnerable situation..that most of us don't realise until it's too late.

It's good to raise awareness because it impacts basically the rest of your life.

*posted too soon.
We don't find out until it's Tom late. But you see posts here on a weekly basis if someone planning/hoping yo/dreaming of moving abroad and this is never factored in! And when it's brought up, it's basically dismissed.

It's pretty hard to dismiss when you're living in a country that you don't choose to be in. And as a foreigner. Think of UK press about foreigners/immigrants/non-British born parents recently - British press isn't the only one not loving foreigners - and then imagine you're foreign but you can't leave!!

Nobody ever talks about all this when thinking of moving abroad.

Yes not one ly NZ, I can't moved back to my home country, stuck here in the uk until the kids are grown up.

I think people are being a bit harsh on the OP here. Many men get offered a great job opportunity overseas and convince the wife with “let’s just try it for 6 months, we can always come back if we don’t like it.” They try it, the wife doesn’t like it and wants to come home, they argue and the relationship ends, then the wife finds that the country she thought was a ‘temporary try out thing’ has legally become her children’s permanent home and she has no right to take them back to the original family home.

A lot of women fall into this trap so it’s no bad thing that OP is highlighting it, particularly to UK as so many people are so keen to emigrate right now.