Is she being unreasonable?

[squashandsqueeze]

A dear friend of mine has been separated a couple of years and his dd lives with ex wife. He has regular contact, they talk every day and she stays with him a couple of nights a week. They have a very good relationship.

He is originally from another country and his family all still live abroad. They have been unable to visit for a while now and unfortunately it will remain that way for the foreseeable future. He desperately wants to take his dd to see his family, get to know them, see where he grew up, learn about the country and the culture etc.

However, his ex is adamant that she will not allow him to take his dd abroad.

Is she allowed to do this? He is on her birth certificate, he pays regular maintenance, would do anything for his dd, tries his best to keep things amicable with the ex.

I can't help thinking that, as he's also her parent, he should have an equal say?? Is there anything he can do in this situation?

It depends where it is, 7 or 8 hours from London takes you to some countries I would be very wary of letting DD go with my ex, places like Pakistan, Ethiopia, Cameroon, UAE.

She would have no chance of getting her back. Has she met his family, does she trust them? They may put immense pressure on him to let them keep her. Families can have a lot of sway in some cultures.

My ex is also foreign and although from a country signed up to the Hague I would never let DD go alone as I just could not imagine being able to get her back from there if it all went wrong.

Agreed Lili. When couples break up you can end up with someone stuck a long way from their family and most of their friends, unable to move because of their DC.

I've seen it raised on here when people are emigrating with DC and one partner is unsure but has agreed to give it a go for a year. After a year the new country may be considered as the habitual residence of the DC and the partner who was unsure could face the choice of being staying there or returning without their DC.

I think you'd have to be very naive not to consider custody issues when your ex partner wants to take your child to visit country they were born in (hold a passport from) and their family still live in

I agree, one should consider this matter seriously. I still sent my dd to visit her grandparents and father because I decided that the chances of her not being sent back were slim, but it is a hard one to call.

OP, if you are sure your friend's ex is being so unreasonable why won't you state whether or not the country is signed up to The Hague Convention and generally abides by it?

I think the country in question is NOT, and therefore you and your friend are the unreasonable ones.

Look, the ex-wife could be being a bitch or she could have a perfectly justifiable reason.

Without knowing the country and the history of their relationship, none of us can say.

Without knowing the country and the history of their relationship, none of us can say.

This from BoyScout with bells on.

I actually can't believe some of the responses here. People so willing to believe that a father would abduct his own child but not that perhapsthe ex is a bit of a bitch

I got a court order covering my sons entire childhood prohibiting his father from removing him from the UK, even his dad now openly acknowledges I was right to do so and I am not a bitch.

If he has asked the mother and she has refused, he should take the issue to court for permission

He could be its not a slam dunk as people appear to believe,he could of course sit down and discuss the issues she has and see if they can co operate and resolve them. Somewhere shoved in with the children's act is a bit that says no order should be issued if one is not needed (or words to that effect) one would not be needed if they could resolve the issues or compromise

If she is saying he may not bring DD back, then the court would obviously be asking for some evidence of her concerns the country concerned can be enough

The court will look at what is in the best interest of the child and that includes seeing their extended family that sentence should include the word could as its not a given that it will be in the kids best interests

This works both ways, for mothers and fathers taking their child out of the country this is the important bit both parents are entitled to with hold consent

From what OP has said, this seems like a rare decent guy. If the tables were turned and a father was refusing to allow a mother permission, views would be different would they? Leaving the country is one of the very few things that can not happen legally unless all with PR actively consent, the situation does not change dependant on parents gender

There is no reason the child would need their mother more than their father and that be a legitimate reason not true that was one of the reasons why my court order was granted

How do I know all this? Because my ex is being difficult about me taking my children on holiday

Don't forget every case that goes before the court is viewed individually based on the different situations just because Fred blogs got x order does not mean someone else with different circumstances would get the same order.

o me it is nothing to do with gender. She has residency, and as such has something to 'lose'. He presumably wants more time with them, and has family support overseas. So as the mother, I would be worrying that it would be very easy for him to stay as he has support out there. I would say the same were the roles reversed.

"It's incredibly rare though!"

Is it really, TwinkieTwinkle.

I understood that, from the British Government Statistics released in 2012 that there had been an increase of over 80% in exactly this type of abduction (that is, non-UK parent taking child to that parent's home country for a 'holiday' and abducting), in the past decade.

One child every three minutes.

A lot can change when a relationship splits up. Most people don't feel the same about their ex, as they did when they were together.

It isn't rare that this happens at all. She could be just being difficult but most people on this thread are saying either way. They are exploring possible reasons. I would think the same if the ops friend was a woman.

Fkying his ex wife out as well might not work either. Some countries outside The Hague convention don't recognise PR and will automatically give the father ownership. So his ex could find herself at the airport/ in violation of visa rights and forced to travel without her child.

It's not as uncommon as people think. I have met women, when I was an expat, who had had their children taken away - and with certain laws being available to expats now, they have no chance of getting them back or having contact at all. I nearly came a cropper myself. Luckily I did the research and realised the risks. Others aren't so lucky.

And at 10, she has a say too, maybe she doesn't want to go. Which is fine.

An awful lot of men, even some quite nice ones start talking about getting "custody" of the children as soon as they get angry. Most of the times these are empty words, but they are not words that a mother is likely to forget in a hurry.