Child custody dispute for unmarried parents

Legal Legal - Divorce
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Dear all

I have this situation which I would like to seek everyone’s advice.

My Thai girlfriend had a child with her Taiwanese boyfriend in 2018 but they were never legally married. The issue at hand now is the custody battle between mother and father over the child (who has no nationality now due to the fact that they were not married).

My girlfriend has engaged a local lawyer and has completed the mediation sessions but to no avail as both parties cannot agree on certain things.

The first court case has ruled that she can visit her child from the 12th to the 15th of every month. However, she has another pending case where she is trying to fight to bring the child back to Thailand. The hearing will take place sometime in Sept to Oct.

Can anyone provide any advice on what can be done during this period to achieve a more favourable outcome?

Thank you.
Kenny

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Has anyone encountered this before? Thanks in advance for all advice given.

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Not a lawyer but the father is TAiwanese you say. Then all he has to do is go to local precinct and register his child i believe. The child will have Taiwanese citizenship because his father is Taiwanese.

Not wanting to be negative, but if the child is in Taiwan and one parent is Taiwanese, and the Taiwanese parent wants the child, it will be very hard for the non Taiwanese parent to gain custody and even harder for that parent to bring the child out of Taiwan.

p.s. yes the birth certificate is important

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5

at the hospital in Taiwan, whose name(s) was(were) put on birth certificate as parent(s)?
Start from the beginning.
@tommy525 kind of made the direct point i was trying to find. :clap:

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  1. You wrote that “the child” (who has no nationality now due to the fact that they were not married).
  2. You wrote that first court case has ruled that SHE can visit her child from 12th to 15th of every month. Then SHE is trying to fight to bring the child back to Thailand.

I’m just guessing:

  1. The mother already gave her “authenticated singleness document” to Father’s household so that this Child can benefit and access to NHI.
  2. Possible the Child already traveled to Thailand using Taiwan passport.
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For the next single foreigner who has a kid with a Taiwanese, think about your situation and that of your child:

  1. If you are expecting child support, dream on. The law is not on your side in this regard. So having the child here unmarried has no advantage in that regard.

  2. If the child is born in Taiwan, the Taiwanese parent as stated can put him under his household. As a Taiwan child, it will be a very difficult, practically impossible, for then to the foreign parent to get the kid out. On the other hand, the Taiwanese parent can just take the kid abroad and hide and no one can do a thing. Has happened with celebrities and common folk.

  3. The children here cannot be used like anchors. The foreign parent will have an ARC dependent on the kid… until teh kid is 18 years old, then such parent is OUT. Work options under this ARC are also limited.

You will notice that there are not many single parents among the Taiwanese, unless it is divorce. There is a reason for it. Ask a Taiwanese.

The law here is really weird. To inscribe the kid if not married, or if married in less than a 10 month period from birth, DNA test is required.

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Unless, from the beginning SHE applied for report of birth (in Thailand immigration office) then apply for dual passport. But I think SHE did not because those early date their relationship still in good condition - Now she could only visit her child 2x per month.

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No, not twice per month. Only once, from 12th to 15th.

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Sorry for the late reply. I was at work and can only update the questions now.

According to her…only the Mother’s name is on the birth certificate.

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get the Thai consulate/trade office involved, if the baby is to be considered as a Thai birth abroad.
I’d take that route along with lawyer

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Hi there. Sorry for late reply, I was at work.

According to her…she got pregnant in Thailand. They tried to register their marriage but at the Taiwan embassy in Thailand but they ran into some problems. They had to submit documents stating why the girl got pregnant before marriage. After bouncing back and forth with the Taiwan embassy a few times, the ex-bf got fed up and refused to go to the Taiwan embassy anymore, citing “work” reasons.

And no, the daughter has never travelled out of Taiwan before.

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I will start from the beginning later

Thanks all for the input so far.

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in that case, the father gets his child registered is not as easy as a taiwanese unmarried mother registers her baby.

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Ok so the story is like that.

Thai Girlfriend gives birth to a baby daughter in Aug 2017. On the birth cert, only the mother’s name is reflected ( I saw the true copy from the snapshot).

All was fine at the start and then the ex-boyfriend started going for long trips. He could be gone almost for a stretch of 10 days, leaving the girlfriend and daughter with his mother and sister. Problems started occurring from there, and there were many disagreements between girlfriend and the ex-boyfriend’s mother and sister, while the ex-boyfriend was away on “work” trips.

One day, girlfriend came back to find that the lock on the house has been changed. She couldn’t enter and panicked, because no one was at the home and all her belongings were inside. She waited very long but no one came home and she couldn’t find her daughter. She finally enlisted the help of a kind neighbour who allowed her to enter the house via his window.

The ex-boyfriend family refused to let her in and she had no choice but to return to Thailand. She did sought the Thai embassy help in Taiwan but all they offered her was to help her find a lawyer, and to make matter worse, she had to wait.

With the notion that her daughter was forcibly taken from her when she was a few months old, she decided to fight back and engage a lawyer on her own to fight for her case. Her case was even reported on a Taiwan News Network in 2018 which mentioned that her daughter was forcibly taken from her mother.

So here we are in 2019 where the first stage of mediation failed but the court has granted her visitation rights every month from the 12 to 15 and her daughter is allowed to stay with her 2 nights.

The next round of court is probably in Sept 2019 where she will try to fight to take over care and control of her daughter to bring back to Thailand.

Sorry for the long post, but this was what transpired from 2017 till now.

I have some questions…how can we prove that the ex-boyfriend is not the primary caregiver? According to my girlfriend, he passes the role of caregiver to his mother and sister and goes on long “work” trips. Can be this proven easily in court?
Also the fact that the birth cert only has the mother’s name…will it be an advantage in court?

Many thanks and I apologise once again for the lengthy post.

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That sounds very strange.
If the birth certificate only shows the mom’s name, in what basis did the court allowed visitation rights, but not fully custody to her?
I mean, even there’s nothing that can prove that the ex-boyfriend is the father, no?

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Exactly why my gf feels aggrieved.

She feels that the family had stolen the daughter from her. She feels that the Taiwanese court is biased towards their own citizens. She has submitted all these documents including the birth cert to her local lawyer.

Which is why I am seeking more advice on what can be done. The Thai embassy seems luke warm in offering help as well.

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How did she get her lawyer?
Did she consult with LAF or any of SEA immigrant organizations?

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Thank goodness she had a translator (to translate Chinese into Thai) who also worked at a TV station.

That same translator was the one who arranged for her story to be boardcasted by the news station and she also helped her to find a local lawyer to help her fight her case.

After browsing through so many threads in this forum, I finally understand how different the judicial system is in Taiwan compared to so many other developed nations.

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I’m not sure whether her lawyer for the previous court case was not a incompetent one. The story sounds like a good lawyer could have got her full custody.

If she has not done yet, it might be worth to consult with
TransAsia Sisters Association
.

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No matter how good a lawyer, unfortunately the kid was born in Taiwan of a Taiwanese father. It will take a lot of guanxi to tear the kid away from the family. As we can see, the father does not care but the family does. The mother is going against dinosaur judges and not a few corrupt officials. If the birth certificate has only the mother, how could they give custody to the father? Seems some made up another birth certificate.

I would like to say this is rare but it is not. Tell the mother to fight this will all she has and more. Make a big stink. Take it to the highest level.

One day, I would like to see a protest of all the parents who have had their children taken away like this. It is getting beyond hundreds.

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