'Stolen' son now in China

When Port Elizabeth mother Elize Lin phoned her nine-year-old son on Wednesday to wish him a happy birthday, she believed her five-year custody battle for him was almost won.

Instead she learned that her estranged husband had allegedly smuggled their child in to China - despite a court order that barred him from taking the child out of the country .

Lin married a Chinese man in 2003 and lived with him in Durban until their separation in 2009. Lin said the father wanted the boy to be educated in China and, after taking him there, tricked her into signing a document that she was told would allow her son to attend school there.

In fact, what she signed was a document that made her mother-in-law her son's legal guardian.

In the Durban High Court foyer yesterday, Lin said: "I am back at the beginning of my five-year battle. I had hope, but now it feels like [my son] has been snatched from my arms all over again.

"Someone, please help me."

A room in the Port Elizabeth home of the boy's grandparents was stocked with Christmas presents in preparation for his imminent return .

Despite being told by a Port Elizabeth High Court judge in 2010 that there was no legal way to get her son back, Lin never gave up.

Lin contacted lawyers, the police, Home Affairs officials - anyone who would listen, anyone who might help.

Earlier this month Lin discovered that her son was in Durban on holiday and had been living at his father's Westville home since June.

Lin immediately approached the Durban High Court and secured an order prohibiting her son from being taken out of the country.

The court ordered the Department of Home Affairs to block the child's passport.

But when Lin phoned her husband he told her that the boy was in China.

Said Lin: "I then called my husband's family in China. I asked for [my son]. The phone was handed to him.

"But before he could say more than 'Hello mom' it was snatched from him."

But Lin is not giving up.

"I can't give up. I just can't. I want my son back," she said.