When a divorced parent sabotages passports for the children

• Susanne Ulven Børsum

  Case manager, Legal advice for women (Jurk)

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• Ane Jørdre Øybekk

  Case manager, Jurk

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• Sevgi Often

  Case manager, Jurk

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It is psychologically and financially taxing. And the biggest losers are the children.

Debate
This is a debate post. Opinions in the text are the responsibility of the writer.

Summer holidays and open borders finally provide the opportunity to travel again, despite long passport queues and the aftermath of strikes.

But some divorced parents may encounter an unpleasant challenge:

That the other parent refuses to consent to the child’s passport.

This was experienced by a woman in her 50s from Oslo, like this year told NRK about how the children’s father refuses the children to get passports. She feels that he wants to sabotage her. The law must open up more opportunities for children to obtain passports – without the consent of the other parent.

Passports for children require cooperation between the parents

Parents who share parental responsibility both have the right and duty to make important decisions on the child’s behalf, such as whether the child should get a passport. Unless one parent has sole parental responsibility, the child is dependent both parents’ consent to passport.

The possibilities of obtaining temporary passports for the children without the consent of the other parent are few, time-consuming and expensive. Applications are only granted for single trips, and the full fee for obtaining a temporary passport must be paid each time you wish to go abroad.

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Legal advice for women (Jurk) receives weekly cases related to passport issues. Not all parents are able to cooperate, and we learn that several fathers do not agree to passports.

We cannot say for sure exactly how many this applies to. We have tried to obtain statistics, including from the police at the Greenland police station, without success. The dark figures can thus be large, but the number is not decisive. In any case, it is burdensome for those concerned.

A high level of conflict results in more losers

Many parents argue about their children’s upbringing, distribution of expenses and each other’s new partners. Many also carry grudges from a relationship that didn’t work out. This makes it difficult for the parents to agree on important decisions for the child.

The law’s solution, and the next step for parents stuck in such a conflict, is to take the case to court to demand sole parental responsibility.

This is psychologically and financially taxing. The parent is faced with a big problem, but cannot necessarily afford to pay for the solution.

The biggest losers are the children. The consequence of not having a passport can be that an eight-year-old daughter with an expired passport misses the family’s summer holiday trip, a 16-year-old son is not allowed to join the group of friends to Spain, or that a 14-year-old daughter is not allowed to join Disneyland.

The legislation needs revision

The law needs more exceptions that enable passports for the child without the consent of both parents. If a parent repeatedly refuses to consent to a passport, a real justification for the refusal should be required. If the child is not in possible danger, the child should be able to obtain a passport without the consent of both parents.

A parent can write himself out of the child’s life completely, and still not want to agree to give parental responsibility to the other parent or for the child to get a passport.

In cases where there is actually only one parent in the child’s life, it should be easier to obtain the child’s passport without an expensive and unnecessary case before the courts.

The legislation must pay more attention to the best interests of the child. It must work better in practice and not randomly affect children who have no control over their parents’ conflict.

As the system is today, it is the children who lose.

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