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When an intercultural marriage dissolves, deciding who gets the kids can become a fierce battle of wills and an international entanglement as different legal systems come into play. Photo: Li Hao/GT
Friday was the 11th day that Kathy Wang woke up without knowing where her daughter was. According to her, her Swiss husband took their 4-year-old daughter out of kindergarten on March 20 and has kept Wang from seeing the child or knowing her whereabouts ever since.
She tried calling the police and going to police stations, but she was told little can be done since their daughter is with her father, and the couple is still legally married.
Wang's parents, the child's grandparents, couldn't take it. They go to the airport almost every day in the hope of stopping their son-in-law if he tries to take their granddaughter out of the country. They have also stood outside the Daimler office building in Wangjing, where the man works as a senior employee, with a placard telling the story, hoping that public opinion and pressure on the company could lead to his whereabouts.
"Although he is the father, it's abduction," Wang said.
She said she believes her daughter is safe but is very concerned about whether the ordeal will scar the child psychologically.
Wang asked for help in some WeChat groups with couples in intercultural marriages in Beijing. Her story has touched a nerve in the community and has spurred discussion on custody battles when intercultural families split.
Intercultural marriages are becoming more and more common in China, and Chinese are no strangers to seeing international couples tie the knot. But when these marriages end, the custody dispute between the once happy couple can be fierce and tricky, made more complex by cultural differences and the complicated laws that govern such situations in each spouse's home country.
Wang told Metropolitan that she has hired a lawyer to get a divorce and file for custody.
According to Wang, her husband has been living on his own outside their home for two years, and he has never told her where he lives. But what hurts her most is his being aloof toward their daughter.
They had a good marriage in the beginning, Wang recalls. After getting married, the couple and Wang's parents depleted all their savings on the wedding, a down payment on a small apartment in Beijing, and her husband's career, including helping pay for his EMBA courses at Tsinghua University.
"I was hoping that he could go back to how he was before. I didn't change the lock on our door [which gave him the opportunity to steal her passport]," she said. "My parents are traditional, and in the beginning, they advised me not to get a divorce."
When her husband moved out, Wang started to take care of herself and her family more actively. She also found a new job to support them better.
"Life was just getting better when this happened," she said.
Wang is trying to be brave for her daughter. She takes painkillers so that she can keep working and talking to her lawyer and the police without collapsing.
"I can't lose my job, or else it would make it even less possible to win if there's a lawsuit," she explained.
A group of birds sit perched on the back of an African buffalo in Kenya's Masai Mara on March 20, 2017. Photo: Ingo Gerlach / Barcroft Images/ CFP
Li Peixuan, a lawyer at the Beijing Weitai Law Firm who has a lot of experience in handling custody disputes in intercultural families, said it would be extremely difficult for Wang to gain custody if the child is taken out of the country.
Li said Wang's parents' going to the airport to keep an eye on their son-in-law, although it sounds like a desperate measure, is actually a very practical one for their side, as they would want to have the court hearing in China.
According to Wang, there's an increasing number of child custody disputes involving foreigners and Chinese spouses happening in China.
A big challenge for Chinese nationals embroiled in a custody battle is China isn't a signatory to The Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, a multilateral treaty which provides an expeditious method for returning a child abducted by a parent from one member country to another.
China's not being a signatory to the convention might harm the interests of Chinese parents if their foreign spouses take their child out of China because there might be no legal grounds to demand the return of the child. The reverse is also true for foreigners if the family lives overseas and the Chinese partner takes the child back to China.
"If a child is taken by either parent, there's little that can be done in a legal sense," Li said.
In Wang's case, for example, it's possible that the Chinese court rules in favor of the mother. But if a Swiss court says otherwise, it can make the execution of the ruling more difficult, and if the Swiss court also gives the mother custody, but the father takes the child to a third country, it further complicates matters.
"It can be very complicated," Li said. She added that it often depends on whether the countries have mutual legal assistance agreements and what kind of agreements they are. She said in many cases, there are often more than two countries involved.
Wang's story has sparked serious discussion among the intercultural couples in Beijing.
Echo, a Chinese woman married to a Frenchman, has been closely following the development of the matter.
"We have no right to make a judgment about their marriage. But telling from the facts, this father suddenly takes their daughter away from the mother, and refuses to talk or to state his reasons - It's outrageous."
Echo has reached out to Wang to lend her support. She said the situation is a strong reminder that people in an intercultural marriage like herself need to be aware of some of the risks.
"This case has gotten a lot of attention in the WeChat groups with intercultural couples, especially among the mothers of mixed babies. People feel sorry for Wang and her daughter and are aware that it might happen to us too," she said.
"Even in failing marriages where both spouses are Chinese, it's common to see cases of stealing children and hiding them from one's spouse. This obviously is abduction. I cannot believe that a European, who clearly knows it's illegal, could do this in China and hasn't been punished by law yet."
Echo told Metropolitan that after some heated discussions, spouses in some of the WeChat groups came up with a generally accepted conclusion that if the family lives in China, they should give their children Chinese nationality.
"If you do that, at least your children's nationality can protect them [from being taken out of the country against your will]."
Liu Shanshan (pseudonym) agreed with Echo. Liu had a custody battle with her Indian ex-husband in 2016. She got custody of their 4-year-old daughter, and he got custody of their 6-year-old son. Her ex-husband works in China and pays monthly child support for their daughter. Their son lives with his fraternal grandmother in India.
She empathizes with Wang and said that it was not as complicated for her, as she and her husband didn't share much mutual property.
"Clearly Wang is in a very bad situation," she told Metropolitan.
Liu said her ex-husband surprised her with a divorce request when her son was in India.
"He was in India, and his nationality is Indian. They have all his papers. There was nothing I could do," Liu said.
She explained that her ex-husband is from a very conservative family and had insisted that their son have Indian nationality. Liu thinks that in her case, her biggest problem in winning custody was her son's nationality. There would have been a slim chance for her to get custody if he was Chinese, she said. At least, he could not be taken out of the country that easily.
When making a decision about the nationality of young children, Liu advised intercultural spouses to thoroughly think it through for their children and their own sakes.
"Don't think that you would never get a divorce or that your foreign husband would know nothing about Chinese law and would never fight for things. Think ahead," she said.