'I just want to cry': Single mom barred from seeing kids after reunion

Single mother Loh Siew Hong is still not united with her three children despite finally tracking down their location after they were taken away by her estranged husband and unilaterally converted to Islam three years ago.

The three children – a pair of 14-year-old twins and a 10-year-old – were briefly reunited with their mother at the Kangar district police headquarters (IPD) in Perlis on Monday (Feb 14).

However, the children were then placed under the care of the Perlis Welfare Department, pending the outcome of a habeas corpus application filed in the High Court in Kuala Lumpur.

A grief-stricken Loh today told Malaysiakini that she is now being prevented from visiting her children by the Welfare Department, even though she was initially told she could see them for an hour every day, on the condition that she gets tested for Covid-19 each time.

She was informed today that she could not visit her children at all due to the increase in Covid-19 cases.

“I just want to cry only. I cannot explain my feelings. Even though my children are now in front of me, I cannot take them with me.

“I told my children, I have no problems with you being in any religion as long as you are with me.

“Ask any religion, and they will say ‘paradise lies under the feet of mothers’. So why are they trying to separate my children from me?” said Loh, who broke down crying when asked about her separation from her children.

She had been so excited to visit her children today, Loh said, adding that she had bought them new clothes in their favourite colours and had prepared their favourite cooked food for them.

Unfortunately, she did not get a chance to give her children the things she had bought for them nor to feed them the food she made them, she said.

Loh and her husband Nagahswaran Muniandy separated in March 2019 and subsequently, she was estranged from her children.

It was reported that Nagahswaran had abducted the three children in Loh’s absence to be converted and placed them in an Islamic centre in Perlis. He is currently in prison for a drug-related offence.

Dissatisfied with unilateral conversion

After the couple’s divorce, the Kuala Lumpur High Court had granted her sole custody to the three children in March 2021, and she spent nine months in a futile search before turning to the police at Bukit Aman.

She later learned her children were with an NGO for Muslim converts. After initially refusing to allow Loh to see her children, the woman at the NGO reportedly contacted Loh after she lodged her police report and told Loh to meet her and the children in Perlis.

During her reunion with her children at the Kangar IPD yesterday, Loh said that her children seemed ready to return with her.

“My youngest, he climbed onto my lap, he hugged me, and he said, ‘mummy, I want to follow you, mummy’,” she said.

Her twins had also asked her if she wanted to convert to Islam, she said.

“I told them, as long as you follow me, I am willing to do that because I am already at this point. How many years did I spend finding you guys before I found you, and now you want this, okay fine, I accept,” Loh said.

When asked if she was truly willing to convert to Islam in order to be reunited with her children, she hesitated.

“I just answered only for them (the children), but in my heart, my religion is Hindu, how can I change,” a frustrated Loh said.

Loh appeared to remain dissatisfied over her children’s unilateral conversion, saying that she, the mother, was still alive.

She said she had even questioned the official from the Perlis Religious Department yesterday who had shown documents purporting that the children had been converted to Islam.

“I asked him how this could happen. I am still alive, I am not dead and without my permission, my children were converted to Islam. Why?

“If they are more than 18 years old and they want to choose their own religion, I do not care. But now they are kids, they do not know what is right or wrong.

“They do not know how to choose yet, how can you people force them?” she said. - Mkini