Children and their safety – for visa applications

One thing we find at Down Under Visa is that no one has any problem with measures taken by the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) to protect kids. And Australia, being a good global citizen, makes every effort to do so. There are rules about sponsoring kids for Australian partner visas (spouse visas, fiancée visas, prospective marriage visas, etc), and some rules for those applying for Australian tourist visas for their partner/girlfriend and included children.

There are two main areas of significance:

• Safety from physical or sexual abuse
• Custody issues

Children at risk of physical or sexual abuse

In an effort to protect kids from being abused from known offenders, there are Regulations in place to prevent such people from sponsoring applicants with vulnerable kids. Therefore they will always request police clearances from the Australian Federal Police (AFP) known as a National Police Clearance (NPC) from the sponsor in order to check if he has a record for any offenses against kids.

And note that they will also look for signs of histories of violence for the same reason.

And they will want police clearances (aka “penal” clearances) from other countries where the sponsor has resided for 12 months or more in the last 10 years, also for the same reasons.

This is pretty straight forward. No one ever objects. And note that clearances must be:

• Specific for immigration purposes, ie. the one you have because you’re a teacher or a Government employee won’t do.
• Up to date, ie. not older than 12 months

And note that they don’t care if you stole a car when you were 19, or you got caught with a bag of illegal green vegetable matter for smoking purposes. We’ve had clients who’ve spent time behind bars, and they’ve sponsored wives and fiancée’s with kids. Never even raised a question mark.

Child custody issues

Kids being kidnapped/stolen/snuck across international borders away from their lawful custodians is a big issue, and one that should be just as understandable as the sex/violence issue above. Anyone who’s been through a marriage breakup with kids involved knows how traumatic it is for both parent and child to be separated. Imagine how you would feel if your child was allowed to get on a plane and disappear overseas for years without your permission or even know knowledge?

Well, if there was a lack of vigilance on the part of the Department, it could be happening all the time. Yes, harder to understand if the biological father is a slack @#%$&% and hadn’t seen his kids for years, but laws are laws. If the ex-husband doesn’t give his OK, the child may not migrate as a secondary applicant on a partner visa. They also may not travel to Australia on a tourist visa either.

In Philippines, most of the time we find that Filipino ex-husbands will give permission. Most of the time they will put the welfare and future of their kids ahead of their own needs, despite any animosity there may be between the two of them. And we have a Government form for this purpose which we will give you at the time.

Note also that they will pay a lot of attention to identity and whether custody issues exist when applying for visas that include child applicants. With tourist visas in particular this may lead to additional delays and/or requests for information. This also means following up to see that parental consent was actually given and not falsified. Please cooperate, because they have sound reasons for this.

Note that for single mums, custody is normally not a factor for Filipina mothers of kids when there was never a legal husband in the picture. Under the Family Code of the Philippines, children born out of wedlock are normally the sole responsibility of the mother. Please discuss this with Down Under Visa when you enquire if you think this may be an issue. We have a lot of knowledge about local matters here, which is why it pays to use a specialist.