He wants to take my kids away =(

[thebubblefairy]

I was with my ex for five years and we have a 3 year old DS and one year old DD.
It was a very volatile relationship, lots of verbal abuse. I finally had enough and ended it just after christmas.

He is a Turkish national and both our kids have dual nationality. Since we split he has been saying I'm an unfit mum and he will take the kids to live with him in Turkey.

Please please please tell me he can't do this?? Don't know what I'd do without my kids.

As Scone says, if they have dual nationality they may be eligible to have 2 passports (Turkish and British). So keeping the current passports safe may not be enough if he could apply for others. You need to get advice from someone knowledgeable about this. Though if he is making threats I would block unsupervised contact as well anyway.

Get legal advice. Like YESTERDAY!

Tell them about his threats to harm them, abduct them and what not.

If your children have dual nationality, your Ex can get passports for them and you won't even know.

I would think that the lawyer would advise stopping access, and getting a prohibitive steps order. At least until you can safeguard their position here. If he has threatened to harm them, they tbh you ought to get some kind of non-mol order.

these abusive fuckers will stop at nothing to get at you and he may very well do what he says he will do. Stop giving him any room to threaten you, change your numbers and tell him to contact you via solicitors or on email only.

this is serious love, he said he'd hurt your kids. That is enough. More than enough. That would mean that my Ex would never see the DC again.

Tell everyone what he is saying to you, don't let one person around you think this guy is normal for a second. get a papertrail going, talk to the school, the dr, the HV, solicitors anyone and everyone. Let the fucker take you to court. (He won't)

Bubble - I have PMd you.

Izzy: Turkish law is Sharia law - 'nuff said.

This is absolute bollocks. Turkey is a secular country. Please don't post scaremongering, inaccurate information. OP is obviously already worried enough.

Not scaremongering, of course, but
www.womenspolicy.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=10517

and check www.reunite.org/forum_view_topic.asp?id=24

You would probably be able to get your DC's back, but who would want to risk having the children be away from their mother for a year or more?

Lueji: That reunite forum also has some duff information on it, like this: "in Turkish culture when a couple splits then the man and his family get custody of the children and the woman always goes her own way, that is unless the man gives the children to his ex wife which isnt often seen."

I would not for one second advocate that OP should allow her children to make visits to Turkey with their father, but it is very important to separate fact from hearsay.

1. Turkey does not have Sharia law.

1. Custody of children is frequently given to mothers, even when those mothers are non-Turkish nationals and the children were born in Turkey.

I speak from personal experience. I have custody of my dual-nationality DD who was born in Turkey and has a Turkish ID card, as well as a British passport. I was divorced in Turkey and was granted custody by a Turkish court. Obviously cases vary, but generalising and posting inaccurate information is unhelpful.

But, OP, please don't let him take your DCs to Turkey on holiday. It's not worth the risk.

OP - have you seen a solicitor yet?

Obviously not all information may be correct, I only posted because it had personal experiences of when it went wrong and how things can become complicated.

And issues can be solved (in most cases), but just the times involved are a worry.
Particularly, if, as in one of the examples, the father can go through court without the mother even being notified.