A warning- marrying and living in Taiwan. And advice sought

A warning for those thinking of marrying and living in Taiwan, from someone who has been through the nightmare.

Regulations state that any child with one foreign parent and one Taiwanese parent cannot leave the country unless the Taiwanese passport is presented at passport control. The only exception to this is when the child has already left Taiwan (for instance to go on a holiday abroad) and re-entered on the foreign passport.

If the marriage goes wrong it is not uncommon for the Taiwanese woman, hurt and bitter, to try to deny her husband the right to see his child. The law will provide no help at all- please contact me if you would like the exact details ! If the husband does manage to get hold of the child and try to “escape” Taiwan with the child, he will find himself stopped at immigration unless he has the child’s Taiwanese passport. The wife, of course, is unlikely to hand this over, and it is impossible for the husband to obtain a replacement passport without the wife’s consent.

The final result is a choice as follows for the father. To be stuck in Taiwan for the rest of his life (or at least until the child comes of age and can make the decision to leave on his own) to be with his child. In this case, anyway, he will most probably lose custody to the wife in court and may never be able to enforce the right to see his child thereafter. Or to leave Taiwan without the child and never see them again. Any parents out there will understand immediately what a terrible thing the latter is.

I am lucky enough to have my child with me now, and refuse to give him back to my wife because I know she will prevent me seeing him as she has done many times in the past. She is also highly unstable and has threatened to kill him and herself together if I didn’t get back to together with her. We actually agreed on the terms of a joint custody divorce agreement, but she proved how little intent she had of keeping this by hiring some thugs to help her take my son away from me just a few days before we were due to sign. Luckily, she failed.

I will do everything in my power to leave this country once and for good with my child. I have a couple of ideas which I will try shortly, for obvious reasons I am not going to give any details on this website just for now. If I am successful, I will try to help anyone else who is the same desperate situation as me.

In the meantime, if anyone out there has any help or advice to offer, I would appreciate it so much.

I thought some countries also wanted a letter from the mother (or vice-versa) if just the father is travelling with the child?

I don’t know what you mean by “some countries”. I am talking about Taiwan.