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SINGAPORE: The Hong Kong-born American citizen was granted full custody of their two sons after his ex-wife secretly took the boys to Singapore.
Six months later, Mr Andrew Ko, 52, is still embroiled in a legal tussle in Singapore to get the youngsters back.
By the end of the year, Mr Ko may have another avenue to seek redress.
According to Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan on Wednesday, the ministry is working to accede to the Hague Convention on Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction (HCCAICA), and is expected to join some 80 signatories by the end of this year.
The pact facilitates the safe return of children wrongly removed from their home countries. Courts in countries which have signed the treaty are obligated to return an abducted child to his home country.
"My ministry is currently working with relevant agencies to finalise the operational details, set up the necessary mechanisms and enact the new legislation to accede to the Convention by the end of this year," said Dr Balakrishnan.
In response to MediaCorp's queries on why MCYS set their original deadline at end-2008, if it had to work out implementation details, a spokesperson said: "Singapore takes all its international obligations seriously and makes every endeavour to implement our commitments fully."
"To that end, MCYS has been examining the obligations of HCCAICA carefully to work out the best possible method of implementation. The HCCAICA involves a specialised area of work with children and requires careful preparation for the implementation."
According to lawyer Yap Teong Liang, if it is a case of child abduction, Mr Ko may be able to tap on governmental help to locate his children, and secure their return to the United States.
Mr Yap added he is not surprised with the delay in signing the Convention. "It is a lot of details to work on to establish systems and workflows."
Documents uploaded online show Mr Ko's attempts to verify with the Ministry of Education (MOE) if his sons were registered in a Singapore school. However, after providing the necessary details and documents proving he is the children's legal custodian, MOE said it was "unable to accede to the request".
When contacted, MOE said it was unable to comment as this is an on-going case before the Singapore courts.
Mr Yap said parents whose children were abducted into, or out, of Singapore before the convention was signed may still be able to benefit later on.
"A lot depends on the wording eventually ... I rather suspect that they would probably not draw a distinction (between those whose children were abducted before the Convention is signed)," said Mr Yap. "It is not practical."
Article 12 of the HCCAICA states that if a child has been wrongfully removed, or retained, for less than a year, the authority concerned shall order the return of the child. If the child has been removed for over a year, the authority shall also order the child's return, unless it is shown that the child is now settled in its new environment.
According to The Orange County Register, which published Mr Ko's case two weeks ago, he is now fighting to get his wife extradited to the United States. This, even though the US Department of Justice had told him it could not pursue extradition because Singapore considers parental child abduction a civil, rather than a criminal, matter.
Mr Ko is also looking into how Singapore passports for the boys got issued, and has hired a lawyer here to fight an attempt by his ex-wife to be awarded full custody of the boys. She now alleges he is not the children's biological father.
According to the report, a Singapore judge has recently recognised Mr Ko's right to be a part of any legal proceedings here.
- TODAY/sc
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