A 32-year-old Taiwanese woman recently divorced from her husband in Singapore filed a request to the court to bring her three-year-old son back to Taiwan, reasoning that Taiwan was "safer than Singapore" with the ongoing pandemic.

Woman tried to bring son back to Taiwan after relationship with husband soured

Disagreeing with the woman's reason, the judge ruled out her request, pointing out that Singapore had already started reopening, and added that the situation in other regions could change anytime, reported Lianhe Wanbao.

Her ex-husband, a Chinese national, 32, is a Singapore Permanent Resident. The two got married in Singapore in July 2016, and have been living here since.

In 2017, their son was born, but problems surfaced in their relationship not long after.

In 2018, the woman secretly returned to Taiwan, bringing her son along with her without her husband knowing.

Man filed application to prevent her from leaving country with son

She returned to Singapore together with her son at the end of 2018 after the two began the mediation process under the local court.

In March 2019, the woman attempted to return to Taiwan with her son again, but the man had discovered the flight tickets before she could do so.

He immediately filed an application for a court order to prevent her from leaving the country.

The judge who oversaw the hearing at the time approved the application as the judge agreed that there was room for suspicion that the woman was trying to take her son out of the country without the child's father's knowledge.

According to the court order, the woman is not allowed to bring her son overseas without the man's approval.

After the divorce proceedings were completed in March 2020, the woman filed a request to lift the court order on Apr. 30, to bring her son back to Taiwan, as she felt that Taiwan was relatively safer than Singapore.

However, her reason was denied by the presiding judge.

While the judge agreed that Taiwan's number of confirmed cases are lower than Singapore's, the local situation is also considerably safe, as community cases and mortality rate are very low.

The judge added that the outlook of the pandemic is largely unpredictable, and could change anytime, and that it was an unnecessary risk for the child to travel during the pandemic.

According to the Chinese daily, the woman plans to appeal against the ruling.

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