Mom takes kid to live in Poland with no warning. Is this legal???

Question

My husband has a child with a woman who is from Poland. We just found out today after many unanswered phone calls that she took the 3 yr old to Poland, and because she is not a US citizen, she may be detained when she returns. Our concern is that my husband is NOT on the birth certificate. Is there anything we can do? Does he have any rights since the child is a US citizen? He never went with her to Poland, as they weren't together very long, so he's not 100% of her town, and only knew the mother who was her with the little girl's mom. Any help would be great, my husbands heart is broken. The little girl was born in NYC. What steps would we take? Would we have to fight for her in Poland? PLEASE HELP!!!

Answer 1

no, there is nothing he can do since his name does not appear on the child birth certificate,

the mother has every right to take the child out of the country and without permission from anyone;

that is whether the child is an US citizen or not.......

unfortunately, he has no rights on the child,

only the mother does.......

and in Poland?he has no rights...... legally, he is not the father...

you can only speak of abduction or kidnapping if two parents are involved.......

# Parental kidnapping is the abduction and/or concealment of a child without the consent of the other parent #

one other thing to consider is nationality:

Children born to Polish parents usually acquire citizenship irrespective of place of birth.

Dual citizenship is normally permitted in Poland. However, Poland will view a dual citizen as if he or she was solely Polish. Thus, Poland does not recognize the foreign citizenship of its nationals when they are on Polish soil.

Answer 2

It can be legal if the father has not recognised the child in any way (name not on birth certificate, not made any payments, no court orders). There are some countries that will allow automatic full custody to the mother if the child is born out of wedlock unless there is a court order.

Most likely the child went out of the country on a Polish passport as the child would have had access to dual citizenship.

If the father wasn't recognised on the birth certificate then it was significately easier for this the mother to take the child out of the country. What he needs to do is establish paternity, then custody.

The father may have some say as the child is a US citizen and (I'm assuming based on the details posted) the child lived the first 3 years of their life in the USA making the USA the home country. Most likely you'll have to take your case to Poland and attempt to fight it out there.

If you take the case to court in Poland then it is possible the courts will be biased towards the mother since she is Polish and the mother will get custody (as the child is Polish through the mother) but the father will get some visitation rights. If the child ordinarily lives with the mother then the mother may still get custody.

Try looking up the Hague Convention Law. It does deal with child kidnapping amoung other things.

http://travel.state.gov/family/abduction...