Giving kids in custody battles a voice

SINGAPORE — On weekends, veteran lawyer Amolat Singh ditches his usual attire of a black suit for a T-shirt and chinos, and heads to fast-food outlets or playgrounds to meet children whose parents are going through a divorce.

The 62-year-old spends hours chatting with them, getting them to open up to him so he can recommend to the court the best care and custody arrangements for them.

Mr Singh is a child representative appointed by the courts to give an impartial voice to children caught in acrimonious divorce cases.

Since the scheme kicked off in 2014, child representatives have been appointed in 24 cases — eight in 2015 and 16 last year. There are now 26 lawyers doubling up as these representatives.

Over the past three years, Mr Singh has handled three cases, mostly involving children who are in upper primary and lower secondary school.

Some of the challenges he faces on these assignments are gaining access to the children he is supposed to represent and getting them to warm up to him. Parents, he observed, are often suspicious of his motives.

“They worry about who you are and whether you’ll leave the children more traumatised than they already are,” he said, adding that he makes it a point to explain to the parents what his role is.

Once the parents come round to it, the next hurdle to clear is finding time to meet the children. “You can’t touch them on weekdays because they have school. So most of the time, you meet on Saturday and Sunday,” he said.

That adds up to many weekends of work, where he will make multiple trips to the children’s homes, even joining them on their regular jaunts to the playground or on outings.

Rather than scheduling meetings in an unfamiliar setting such as his office, he prefers to dive into their comfort zone. The little details make all the difference, such as sitting on the floor alongside the children to be at “their level”. “The last thing you want to do is to ask them to go to the office and you’re in a tie and jacket. That will just freak them out,” Mr Singh said.

Other challenges include dealing with manipulative parents who try to sow discord by making allegations about the other spouse to the children, or parents who coach their children on what to say to them, another two child representatives said.

Mr Harold Seet, 61, who has dealt with two cases so far, stressed that cross-checking information with the children and their teachers is important in such situations.

Then there are the times when bureaucracy gets in the way of their work, Mr Singh said.

“In at least one case, I had to explain to the school that I’m appointed by the court, I’m not a busybody. They said they had to check with the government ministry — that took a week. Then they told me to send the questions via email.”

Once the children are ready to talk, Mr Singh will have to suss out how they want to spend time with their parents, for instance.

Recalling a case involving two children, he said that they preferred their father to help them with their mathematics homework.

The mother had initially refused to yield to this arrangement, but both sides eventually came to a compromise that the father would spend one-and-a-half hours on two weekdays a week to tutor them in the subject at a library near their home.

In some cases, success in making the most suitable arrangement does not simply mean abiding by the children’s wishes.

Ms Malathi Das, 48, another lawyer and child representative, pointed out that most of the time, the children could not articulate the best outcomes for themselves, and she has had to make a judgment call.

“You feel a tremendous sense of responsibility. They look at you and expect you to help ... the most difficult thing to do is wanting to do the right thing by the child,” she said.

While going through a divorce may be a highly emotional affair for the parties involved, Mr Seet said that he makes it a point to remind these parents of what they have in common, that they are “fighting so hard” because they want the best for their children.

“At the end of the day, I tell them, these are your children, not mine, not the court’s,” he said.