YOURSAY | Wrong to ‘manipulate’ children in conversion row

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Ordeal not over for single mum whose children were converted unilaterally

KUALA LUMPUR: Loh Siew Hong says her husband brutally abused her, battering her over the head and breaking her ankle, before running off with their children and converting them to Islam.

After a long legal battle, Loh was finally reunited with her 14-year-old twin daughters and 11-year-old son in February when a court ruled in her favour.

But the ordeal has taken a heavy toll.

“It was torture for me,” the 35-year-old told AFP of the long period separated from her children.

“I used to wonder whether my children had enough food and enough sleep. I used to worry whether my ex-husband was beating and torturing them like he used to do to me.”

It is the latest case in multi-ethnic Malaysia of a so-called “unilateral conversion” to Islam — one parent converting a child’s religion without the other’s permission.

The issue has become another battleground between increasingly vocal Islamist hardliners and those seeking to defend the rights of minorities.

While the communities mostly live harmoniously, critics say decades of policies favouring Malays have strained relations, with the country’s traditionally moderate version of Islam losing ground to creeping radicalisation.

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