PETALING JAYA: Loh Siew Hong can finally heave a sigh of relief. Her children are with her now – three years after they were taken away by her estranged husband.
Rather than dwell on the years she spent fearing for their well-being, Loh has chosen to forgive and forget.
“No hard feelings. I’m just happy to be with my children again,” she told theSun in a phone interview yesterday.
The years she spent at the courts finally ended well for her.
On Monday, the High Court issued an order for the children to be returned to her custody with immediate effect.
The children – twin girls aged 14 and a 10-year-old boy – were in the witness waiting room at the court complex when the ruling was delivered.
Loh said her children are now living with her and adjusting well to their new surroundings, adding that she plans to start a food truck business in the near future.
She also wants her children back in school as soon as the next session begins in March.
The children already have big plans for themselves. One of the girls wants to join the police force and the other hopes to practise law someday. Her son’s ambition is to be an engineer.
Despite the attention they have received over the past week, Loh said her children are safe with her.
“There have not been any threats from individuals or groups. We feel safe.”
She said on their first day together, the children told her they missed her fried instant noodles, which she happily cooked for them.
Loh added that her focus now is to see to her children’s education and for them to live happily together.
Loh’s case gained public attention when Penang Deputy Chief Minister II Dr P. Ramasamy raised the matter in a letter to a news portal last week.
According to Ramasamy, Loh had lodged several police reports since 2019 after she was not able to trace her children upon leaving a shelter where she was recovering from
domestic abuse.
She then filed a writ of habeas corpus to get custody of her children, who had allegedly been converted to Islam without her knowledge.
The family had split up in 2019 when Loh left their home in Perlis to seek refuge at the shelter in Penang.
In March last year, Loh was granted exclusive custody of the children when her husband was sent to prison for drug-related offences.
Loh later discovered that her children were staying at an Islamic hostel in Tasek Gelugor.
In an immediate response to the court decision, Perlis mufti Datuk Dr Mohd Asri Zainul Abidin said any attempt by Loh to reverse her children’s conversion to Islam would be a “top concern”.
Loh’s lawyer Gunamalar Joorindanjn had said that the children’s conversion would be challenged, reviving memories of the Indira Gandhi case.
Indira Gandhi had won exclusive custody of her three children but more than a decade on, she is still looking for her youngest child, who is believed to be still with her father, who had unilaterally converted the children after he embraced Islam.
Gunamalar said when the children and the mother are staying together, all issues, including religion, can be addressed.
“We will do what is necessary and lawful to assist Loh in the matter,” she said.
“It’s good that Loh acted fast, and things have turned out well for her.”
G25, a civil society organisation of influential Malays, called for the unilateral conversion of the children to be revoked.
“To allow this unlawful separation and conversion to continue is a travesty of justice and a violation of our Federal Constitution and the orders of the courts,” the group said in a statement yesterday.
