Could anybody inform me if they know any father’s rights/ children’s rights group in Taipei?
I am married to a Taiwanese woman. She lives in Taipei with our child. I live in my country in Europe.
After the child became 2 years old, she totally cut me off. I haven’t seen my loved child for 3 years now. Negotiations through a lawyer failed. My wife and her family have refused to give me any information about the child these last three years. The only thing I know is that the child is still alive.
For me solving this family issue through a lawyer is not the right way, actually after trying it and failing, I understood its limitations. It takes lots of time and money. Any court decision about visitation rights and custody has to be enforced. Somebody really determined to totally cut me off the child, like my wife, wouldn’t be afraid of court decisions. In our situation my negotiating position is much weaker than hers because she lives in Taiwan, and she is rich. Any court decision would not scare her. For every time she does not obey the court decision I would have to sue her from a distance of 10,000 km away!
This is the reason I am looking for a father’s rights group or a children’s rights group in Taipei. They should be able to give me better advice on how to deal with the issue than a lawyer. I am also looking for something more specific than the above: does anybody know of any organization private or governmental (social service or similar) than would try to visit my child in her mother’s house and inform me about the conditions of living, the health of the child, the psychosocial development of the child and other basic information about her well being (It would also be helpful to know if the mother is still mentally stable or not).
My heart goes out to you, my story is the same, except I am still here, in a country I frankly hate, and fighting to see my little boy, who I was so close to- he is a daddy’s boy. When he was 2.5 she stopped me seeing him (after using some gangster types to snatch him from me), I have not seen him for seven months now (much of which was wasted using a private detective who took a great deal of my money and turned out to be a fraud). The case has been going through court for the last 3 months or so, it looks like the judge is just about to make an order to enforce my rights (only one weekend every other week, but at least it’s a start).
Yes, she’s shown no indication that she is going to respect the order, it’ll take more money and agonising waiting to enforce it, and she will no doubt try even more tricks when it is enforced. But my lawyers have given me hope, I hope it’s not false, that if she continues to blatantly disrespect my rights, and the court order, then I have a chance of getting full custody.
From what I can see here there is no-one that is going to help you like a support group, no-one here gives a damn. As for father’s rights you will be told that you have a legal right to see your son, which doesn’t help of course if it’s so difficult to get it enforced.
You can still take the matter to court even from a distance, obtain the order and have it enforced, then come to Taiwan. Your wife may be rich but as long as she doesn’t bribe the judge then you still have a fighting chance in court.
Three years without your child, I just can’t imagine how bad that can be. I have gone through hell without my little boy for the last seven months, if I knew I could not see him for two more years I would probably go over the edge.
I also worried about my wife’s mental state and the effect it has on my boy. I am buoyed by the fact she still has a job and that she clearly loves him. Your wife’s attitude (and that of her family) is just typically Taiwanese. When a marriage is over the mother sees no need to give the father a right to see his children. They are not humans in the sense that us Europeans understand it.
Well, if things work out with my lawyers (I have tried many lawyers here, it is very difficult to get good legal advice) I will be happy to pass their names to you. Or any other help you need, just let me know. What country in Europe are you from (I am from the UK, but lived in Spain and Italy for some years).
<<I just re-read platos post and realise this is irrelevant, sorry, but might help others>>
Now, I don’t know anything about this group, I just come upon this kind of thing when doing work for my online business. Here is a link to a “single father group” in Taiwan.
It’s all in Chinese. There are some contacts listed in the left column, if you scroll down you can see their telephone number and address. If you have Taiwanese friends, you can show them this site and tell them you are looking for similar groups, they can do a search online for you. Might not be exactly what you are looking for, but you have to start somewhere.
There are also volunteer lawyers offering services to assist singles with information about custody etc. They are members of single parent groups and volunteer their time. I am really hesitant to post that information because my Chinese is not good enough to completely read all the information, but again, you can ask your friends to help you look online.
[quote=“asiababy”]<<I just re-read platos post and realise this is irrelevant, sorry, but might help others>>
Now, I don’t know anything about this group, I just come upon this kind of thing when doing work for my online business. Here is a link to a “single father group” in Taiwan.
Even living in Taiwan, with a lawyer’s help, I haven’t had much luck. My advice to you is to move on with your life. Someday maybe your child will come looking for you and want to be a part of your life.
[quote=“Plato”]Could anybody inform me if they know any father’s rights/ children’s rights group in Taipei?
I am married to a Taiwanese woman. She lives in Taipei with our child. I live in my country in Europe.
After the child became 2 years old, she totally cut me off. I haven’t seen my loved child for 3 years now. Negotiations through a lawyer failed. My wife and her family have refused to give me any information about the child these last three years. The only thing I know is that the child is still alive.
For me solving this family issue through a lawyer is not the right way, actually after trying it and failing, I understood its limitations. It takes lots of time and money. Any court decision about visitation rights and custody has to be enforced. Somebody really determined to totally cut me off the child, like my wife, wouldn’t be afraid of court decisions. In our situation my negotiating position is much weaker than hers because she lives in Taiwan, and she is rich. Any court decision would not scare her. For every time she does not obey the court decision I would have to sue her from a distance of 10,000 km away!
This is the reason I am looking for a father’s rights group or a children’s rights group in Taipei. They should be able to give me better advice on how to deal with the issue than a lawyer. I am also looking for something more specific than the above: does anybody know of any organization private or governmental (social service or similar) than would try to visit my child in her mother’s house and inform me about the conditions of living, the health of the child, the psychosocial development of the child and other basic information about her well being (It would also be helpful to know if the mother is still mentally stable or not).
Any suggestions?[/quote]
Hi Plato,
Im working as a volunteer to NGO group name Scalabrini for migrant workers and I run across to this group name Spouse’s group association I’ll check this next sunday and let you know the exact name of this group. Sometimes we do have some cases similar to you but most of them are Filipina married to Taiwanese.
I’ve seen enough Taiwanese families that squeeze out a person entirely (whether it be husband or wife). It seems quite acceptable here. And it doesn’t seem to bother the kids one bit. I don’t think he’ll be missed much - as cold as this sounds.
As to the creation of a father’s group, I suppose you have to create your own. And I daresay the issues for a foreign dad (or mom, as the case sometimes can be) are quite different from what appears to be worked out when both parents are local, so may be it’s worth using the connections here on forumosa.com to set something up.
Among other things, children whose parents are both local can often work out the support payment and living situation – even where the parents don’t get along after a divorce the grandparents seem to pick up the slack by sharing some aspects of the childcare the same as they would have if the kids had remained married. Thus, a foreigner dad can’t really offer things up like: “My mom and dad will care of our son/daughter during the week” and so on to sweeten up the deal or to take tensions down a notch. Sure there are locals who get “frozen out” – but in the context of a divorce system that goes incredibly easy if divorce is consensual and incredibly hard if not consensual, there’s often some accommodation reached if a parent does want to spend time with their child. Also, with two local parents there’s a lot less risk that one parent may do a parental kidnapping that scoots the child overseas.
Some foreigners have relatively straightforward ideas about the power of court orders – i.e., “I have a court order, shouldn’t that be enough?” Well, not if the court officials with very heavy docket burdens don’t have the time/interest/inclination to spend a lot of time to go find your kid. “But isn’t that their job?” You can either sit around and wonder about why some government official isn’t “doing their job” or you can sort out where your kid is. Keep in mind that as messy as the Taiwan legal system may seem, it’s only 20 years since this country was under martial law. As noted above, the needs of locals and foreigners can sometimes be very different – and the changes and improvements over the past 20 years have largely not been done to safeguard the interests of foreign dads and moms. So at the same time a parent is pretty naturally upset with the official for not proactively helping to connect them with their child, the official is likely wondering rather judgmentally why you got into this pickle in the first place. In most situations (and not merely child-visitation matters) you have to gift-wrap cases for the court officials, police and prosecutors to then act upon – waiting for them to dedicate police officers and staff to investigate a matter from scratch is going to be a long wait.
Now, some of the posters have mentioned that they’ve been ripped off by local investigators. And there’s a considerable problem with that – our firm has worked with many investigation service providers over the years and had a chance to separate the good, the bad, and the ugly. We have people whom we rely upon for good prices and good, professional work – and we absolutely do not have any “referral fee” or commercial interest with them. You can send me a PM if you want contact details.
I talked with one of my Taiwan lawyer colleagues a bit. If you have court orders supporting your rights to see a child, there may be some further steps to be taken to enforce those rights. Depending on the facts of the cases, there may be criminal complaints that can be filed against the mother and/or family members who are defying the court order (generally) or holding a child against the terms of a court order (specifically). Most people here tend not to act until you unleash the “nuclear option” of a criminal complaint (or at least show them a draft of the criminal complaint, which demonstrates that you’re about to go to the police over the matter).
Thanks. That’s my posting, I have updated it with the latest news and the final judgement from the court. It’s not happy reading, naturally.
Regarding Mr Eiger’s comments about possible recourses for the foreign non-custodial parents. Firstly, even if you can locate your child, the enforcement court will likely do nothing. With the provisional visitation order, I knew exactly where my wife and son were living, and informed the court of this- I just didn’t know where he was being looked after during the day. So common sense would seem to indicate that enforcement should take place at her house in the evening or weekends, right ? But the court insisted that enforcement should take place in “office hours”. The judge went to her office, asked her where our son was being looked after during the daytime- she refused, and the court took no further action apart from applying the minimum fine- 30,000 NT for not letting me see, or have any contact with my son for one year.
Did the court want to fail, so as to avoid the “inconvenience” and loss of face to all involved from going to my ex’s house and taking my son away against her and her family’s will ? Maybe.
As for the option of filing criminal charges. Well I have heard several lawyers mention this option. What I would like to know is, can any lawyers give examples from their own personal experience where the foreign non custodial parent has successfully filed criminal charges against the Taiwanese custodial parent for breech of visitation rights ? As you can see from my story, I have heard enough BS from lawyers to last a lifetime. If I had to go through this nightmare again I would only hire a lawyer with proven success in similar cases to mine.
As things stand, and other Forumosans will back me up on this one, the harsh reality for the foreign parent is that, except in extreme cases such as Taipei Sean, no lawyer can help, and the court system will certainly not help. The only hope is for the Taiwanese parent to start to think in a non-Taiwanese way, and realise that it is in the child’s best interest to maintain contact with both parents.
[quote=“pgdaddy”]Regarding Mr Eiger’s comments about possible recourses for the foreign non-custodial parents. Firstly, even if you can locate your child, the enforcement court will likely do nothing. With the provisional visitation order, I knew exactly where my wife and son were living, and informed the court of this- I just didn’t know where he was being looked after during the day. So common sense would seem to indicate that enforcement should take place at her house in the evening or weekends, right ? But the court insisted that enforcement should take place in “office hours”. The judge went to her office, asked her where our son was being looked after during the daytime- she refused, and the court took no further action apart from applying the minimum fine- 30,000 NT for not letting me see, or have any contact with my son for one year.
Did the court want to fail, so as to avoid the “inconvenience” and loss of face to all involved from going to my ex’s house and taking my son away against her and her family’s will ? Maybe.[/quote]
It’s my understanding from your posts that you had some serious problems with getting accurate information on the actual daytime location of your son. The “office hours” way of handling things is not merely how courts deal with children, it’s also how they handle the attachment of assets and a whole range of things. I hate to say it, but getting judges who often have very heavy docket schedules to work overtime and very proactively on your case is not easy in a lot of countries. As I indicated above, it is really too bad, but it basically is necessary to “gift wrap” case matters for officials here.
Well, all I can say is that having exhausted your options with this judge to do more than a TWD 30,000 fine, it’s good to hear that many lawyers have suggested that you consider taking action under Taiwan’s criminal laws. Then use that as a starting point for triangulating in on the right next legal thing to consider. Keeping in mind the relative rarity of your situation, the relatively small number of lawyers spending time on forumosa.com, it may be hard to find someone who can immediately say “Yes, I’ve done exactly that.“ Most divorce and custody cases are highly fact- and situation-specific, and so it already is not the same as an ultra-common matter like setting up a local corporate entity, filing a trademark, going with the police to seize counterfeit goods. Here, the psychology of the ex is paramount – essentially you need to either ramp up the law to the point where the hurt put on her makes her realize she’s got to stop this horseshit, or else you have to find another way to reach an accomodation with her. Some of these situations are a bit like bespoke tailoring – there’s not really a cookie-cutter way to figure out how to un-fury or un-spite an ex who doesn’t want to comply. Maybe your non-lawyer alternatives would involve a trusted intermediary, or you may have contacts with the local police who sometimes (if you know them) will step in to counsel a bit of reason (although foreigners often chafe at the frequent requests by police for people to settle up disputes on the spot for minor compensation, there is some value sometimes to being able to move swiftly along with one’s life), or perhaps you can take the money you would have spent on lawyers and investigators and spend it to buy time with your kid. Non-lawyer alternatives don’t always feel great in the “I’ve been vindicated by the system!“ sort of way, but they do decrease the stress in your life and often allow you to see your kid.
Well, the court system will not help if you don’t take it to the next level. However forumosa.com is often full of stories supporting the notion that dispute-resolution (be it bosses, neighbors, in-laws, spouses, etc.) often works better when us foreigners can put ourselves into the Taiwanese shoes to understand where they’re coming from. (I’ve tried to help you understand in my earlier post a bit about how some court officials will look at your case and the scope of their responsibilties, but you of course have a much better sense of where your ex is coming from.) I’ve spent my own fair share of time bringing around Taiwanese persons (willing and unwilling persons, at that) to understand the foreigner/international perspective, and I have to say that it is rare/impossible for a person to do it on their own without a bit of guidance.
Your situation seems just heart-breaking, and so I hope you will hang in there and find a solution for this problem. My best wishes for you in these very hard times.
I recommend that you contact Carol Chang at Tel: 2397 1307 Fax: 2391 7592 #10-1, No. 76, Sec 1,
Chung Hsiao E. Road. She is an experienced family lawyer and has good judgment.
I recommend that you contact Carol Chang at Tel: 2397 1307 Fax: 2391 7592 #10-1, No. 76, Sec 1,
Zhongxiao E. Road. She is an experienced family lawyer and has good judgment.[/quote]
Why are you recommending this lawyer ? Has she had success in child custody disputes between a foreign male and Taiwanese female ?
I think I was already recommended this person by someone who was on the lawyer list supplied by the British Embassy. That same someone who told me, in the early stages of me using a “private investigator” that turned out to be the most evil scamster on the face of this planet, that PI’s in general in Taiwan can be trusted :s
I used around five lawyers here, the only thing they had in common is that they got me nowhere and charged a lot of money. One lawyer, Candice from Veritas Lawyers (feel free to sue me for defamation, I have left the country now), was incredibly insulting and hurtful after I had had my son snatched from me. I will never forget her words.
Recommendations are easy to make. It’s too late for me now, but for those in similar positions what you really need to ask of any lawyer is “what success have you had in similar cases to mine” ? Talk is easy, your lawyers may give you the impression of being good value for money with their long and responsive e-mails- but will they win your case in the end ?
The problem is that most bars heavily restrict the ability of lawyers to offer up false promises along the lines of: “Hey, I’ve done a case just like yours and can definitely win.” I don’t think that’s the sort of snake-oil you need. Basically, there are good, very legit and honest lawyers in town and there are some good, very legit and honest investigators in town. Seems you haven’t found them yet, although you at least have your foot in the door with a court order in your favor.
It sounds like you might have a way to use the law and that court order for visitation to accomplish something, if you can take that leap of faith and move on. The next set of lawyers and investigators aren’t going to be free just because your last ones didn’t make you happy, so I don’t know how to reply to your apparent concern that doing anything in your current situation would essentially be throwing good money after bad. I can just say that you and your kid looked really happy in those photos, and I think you can have that back if you can think this through a bit and try your best to get back to having a plan of action instead of sinking down into thoughts of your previous investigators and previous legal counsel.