NGO shares new Muslim's struggle to regain custody of daughter

Editor's note: The real names of the former couple engaged in the custody battle cannot be revealed due to legal reasons.

No distance is too far for NANH, an Orang Asli woman who converted to Islam, to regain custody of her daughter from her non-Muslim former husband.

The 35-year-old has to travel more than 300km from her home in Besut, Terengganu, to undergo the court proceedings in Kuantan, Pahang.

NANH was initially unrepresented as she had no resources to engage legal help until the YY Community Centre took note of her plight and offered to step in.

Besides engaging three lawyers to help NANH, the NGO also embarked on a fundraising campaign to fund her legal battle, said its founder Yuseri Yusoff.

Recently, a video clip of the nine-year-old girl in tears as she was reluctant to be separated from NANH went viral on social media. The girl cannot be named as she is underage.

This came after the Kuantan High Court issued a habeas corpus order for the girl to be handed to RM, the girl's non-Muslim father, on May 25.

NANH and RM, both from the Orang Asli community in Rompin, got divorced in 2018. Following their split, NANH lodged a police report alleging that her ex-husband neglected their daughter. The case is still under investigation.

NANH embraced Islam after the divorce and married a Muslim man. Despite her "new life", NANH's battle for her daughter is ongoing.

Funds for lawyers

According to Yuseri (above), just five days after its launch, the funds to help NANH have totalled RM73,830, upon which it was stopped.

"The collected monies have been channelled to the lawyers representing NANH, and it is expected to be enough to fund the case proceedings up until the higher court levels."

Yuseri expressed concern that the girl may not be brought up according to the Islamic way of life and lamented that the welfare of a mualaf (a person who has just converted to Islam) is not taken care of.

"When the Orang Asli convert to Islam, the religious authorities do not look after their welfare.

"NANH had even previously approached many NGOs but she was turned away, saying that they had no allocations," he said.

Help started flooding in after the video of the distraught mother-daughter interaction went viral on social media, he added. - Mkini