An Ontario lawyer is asking the Crown to investigate a child custody case that is keeping the child’s mother in jail for refusing to bring her child home from China. According to a letter the woman’s lawyer sent the Ministry of the Attorney General in July, the woman is not refusing an order to return her daughter but has reached a point where she is physically and financially unable to do so. He likens her nine-month incarceration to debtors’ prison.
The child who is at the center of the controversy has been staying with relatives in China since 2010. The mother says she was mentally and physically abused by the child’s father and is afraid to bring the child home. Although police previously lodged several charges against the father, he denies the allegations, and the charges have been stayed. The Crown has not, as yet, responded to the letter from the woman’s lawyer.
The Ministry of the Attorney General also would not answer questions from the press, saying that the matter is before the courts. The director of a Toronto legal clinic says the woman is caught in a “Catch-22” situation that many women find themselves in. They are trying to deal with family issues at the same time they are involved in criminal court matters, and there seems to be no way of legally consolidating the intertwined issues. Child custody is often one of the more pressing issues that must be resolved during divorce proceedings. Parents who are contemplating or going through a divorce may want to hire a lawyer to help them file the necessary court documents and represent them during proceedings.
Source: Cambridge Times, “Ontario attorney general asked to probe ‘extreme’ custody case“, Jim Rankin, July 30, 2014