Id Cards And Failed Maternity Tests (Gf'S Sister)

[ilgitano]

Sorry if I'm in the wrong forum.

I am residing in Chiang Mai, and my GF is one of the hilltribe girls (Akha). In a poor village, she and here mother were the poorest. Shes used to being treated with contempt by the authorities here. Getting an ID card took her about 20 years of trying, shes had it about 2 years now. The delay was corruption and an inability to pay the backhanders the Mae Tang offices and the village representatives required in the past.

Her mother has no ID card and is too old to bother with one. She has two sisters. Her older sister just managed to get her ID card on the basis that her sister (my GF) managed to get one, and she has a birth certificate.

Her younger sister is about 11yrs old, and we're now trying to get her ID card sorted. She has no birth certificate, so Mae Tang immigration have required a blood workup to prove shes part of the family.

The blood tests failed - the labs say my GFs mother is not the same mother. <deleted>?

My GF assures me that she is her sister and not somebody elses daughter informally adopted into the family or anything. She even watched the birth.

Mae Tang is infamous for corruption, but this would have to happen at the labs. Whats the likelihood of error or corruption here? Having paid 4000 THB and waited months for results, are we entitled to a copy of the lab reports? Given a copy of the reports it should be pretty easy to show the wrong blood samples have been used, Right? (verify blood types are correct etc)

My GF is guessing the blood samples might have been swapped around accidentally or deliberately.

What recourse do we have here?

(This is par for the course for her over some 20 years of trying to get her own ID card sorted)

[Colabamumbai]

A second test at another lab somewhere else? Asking that you will receive a copy before the testing. I see no reason that you should not be given a copy of the lab report, you paid for it. ( I do not have any personal experience about this.)

[Scott]

It sounds like there are problems with the chain of evidence in the laboratories.

[KED]

Sad that the hilltribe people are treated so badly within Thailand. Good luck in getting it all sorted.

It is sad to see how the majority always take advantage of minorities within society.

You would think that knowing how some overseas Thai workers are taken advantage of by richer nations, that Thailand would not do the same to hilltribe / Burmese / Cambodian / Laos workers.

I know it is not all Thai citizens; however, these practices are allowed to continue in this country to the economically disadvantaged by Thai officials both locally and nationally.

[Mario2008]

The price you paid seems ok, but the time you waited not. it is weeks, not months.

See for example this post: http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/543115-dna-test/#entry5161928

use a big government hopsital, like in Chiang Mai at Chinag Mai University. they have a privte and public part, just use the public hospital.

[ilgitano]

[Colamumbai] A second test seems to be the best idea; it does have to be someone acceptable to immigration. Test wasdone at Suan Doc hospital here in Chaing Mai. I'll check to see if itcan be done again anywhere else - and expedited.

Another complication has turned up - she's supposed to be moving on to another school - shes finished at the current one - and not being having the ID card before starting might complicate things.

[Mario2008] Might be some miscommunication with my GF here, but she says the tests take a couple months (3) to get through to immigration, not a few weeks. I don't know if the delay is at the immigration end, or the hospital but its annoying to have to wait 3 months to find out you've failed and going to have to start over.

[beethovenzz]

Go to Siriraj hospital in Bangkok. This hospital is the best for conducting DNA test in Thailand and the result are accepted by any Thai authority.

[bina]

im not normally one to say this but knowing how convuluted thai familial relationships are, and language glitches, could it be, that your girlfriend is fudging a bit, and that the sister is actually your girl friend's daughter, or daughter of mother's sister... i had a friend marry his brother's wife in the amphur so he could get a visa, although the brother was actually married in the village to the woman... imagine what a mess that would cause for a child's registration?

so, as i say, maybe girlfriend is trying to fudge the results, but still get her sister an id card? there was also a scam with the cards awhile back, and cards were revoked... i think there were posts to that affect here on the forum...

also, in other words, how much thai or language of your girlfriend do u speak or understand. did u actually see the results, or the letter etc? ? and also,ifu ave the money u could always do your own DNA test first thru some other external agent not for court purposes, and then try again? bells are ringing.

bina

[ilgitano]

im not normally one to say this but knowing how convuluted thai familial relationships are, and language glitches, could it be, that your girlfriend is fudging a bit, and that the sister is actually your girl friend's daughter, or daughter of mother's sister... i had a friend marry his brother's wife in the amphur so he could get a visa, although the brother was actually married in the village to the woman... imagine what a mess that would cause for a child's registration?

so, as i say, maybe girlfriend is trying to fudge the results, but still get her sister an id card? there was also a scam with the cards awhile back, and cards were revoked... i think there were posts to that affect here on the forum...

also, in other words, how much thai or language of your girlfriend do u speak or understand. did u actually see the results, or the letter etc? ? and also,ifu ave the money u could always do your own DNA test first thru some other external agent not for court purposes, and then try again? bells are ringing.

bina

My last GF (udon thani) - her sister pulled that scam. Said her older sister and husband were her mother and father, to con her german husband into giving support money to them. Fell apart when she wanted to get a visa to germany - had to get translations of the family/house papers or something and the husband saw it all. Shit hit the fan then. Dishonesty ran in the family, I only hung round for a month then pissed off.

Mothers sister? From China (mid 80's I understand - along with her daughter, my GF at about 9 yrs old) HMMM - bells ringing hey? you wouldn't believe the hoops we had to go through to get my GF her ID card. After some pushing and shoving mae tang finally told us that their records said my GF and mother were from Mae Sai/Burma (first we knew of that) ... We had to 'find-her-long-lost-brother-and-family-in-Mae-Sai' to get reality to line up with bureaucracy,

Current GF I've been with for near 10 yrs now, She has a 27 yr old daughter and 22 yr old son. No reason to hide any others.

And no - haven't seen any letters or documents or anything yet. This is all anecdotal over the phone so far, hence my confusion.

Edited August 24, 2012 by ilgitano

[ilgitano]

Ok, we got a copy of the lab summary - from the Mae Tang immigration office. I got about a half hour to learn something about DNA testing while we went straight to the testing hospital.

This is going to be a report on our confrontation with the doctor supervising the tests.

From the little I got to study, DNA results are usually conclusive; 0.1% or less probability concludes the two are unrelated, 99.99% plus says they are related. Its is rare to get probabilities between. Our results said that there was a 65.5% chance that she is the mother - which is basically inconclusive. We don't get a definite yes or no.

We made a surprise visit to Suan Doc hosptal, and the supervising doctor was not in. He tried to resolve it on the phone, but ended coming in to the office to see us. He was quite angry.

The DNA test checked 16 alleles. 2 definitiely could not have come from the mother. The problem is that if she was not the mother (or father - paternity tests are the same) then there SHOULD have been arround 4-10 mismatches, 2 is like flipping a coin 16 times and getting 2 heads - unlikely. 1 could be a mutation - about a 1 in 400 chance of that, so it has to be allowed for.

2 exclusions could be 2 mutations - about 1 in a 150000 - or the real mother is someone very closely related to the mother. VERY closely related - like a sister at the end of maybe 3 generations of incest. Again not likely.

The doctor was arguing that the girl couldn't be a daughter - like the test was a conclusive negative. (2 in 3 chance she IS the mother dammit) We just made the point we wanted a conclusive result. 0% or 99.99% is acceptable, but conclusive it had to be.

Doctor finally offered to rerun the two failing lines. We should have the results of that in 2-3 weeks.

Epilog: It is a two page document. There is a stamp on the front page indicating that the test was performed at CMU. Noted that the tech is a new student learning the procedures, first time on the equipment.

Edited August 29, 2012 by ilgitano

[ilgitano]

Actually - I think a brother or sister of the mother being one of the real parents could give a result like that. But, the mother is the only representative of her family in Thailand - she emigrated from China 30 odd years ago. Could be one of the daughters too. Hmmm.

I'm just guessing here - I'm no student of mendelian statistics or anything. [i just had to use that word here somewhere - sorry ]

Edited August 29, 2012 by ilgitano

[Maestro]

Interesting situation. How long until you get the result of the repeat test?

[Maestro]

Actually - I think a brother or sister of the mother being one of the real parents could give a result like that. But, the mother is the only representative of her family in Thailand - she emigrated from China 30 odd years ago. Could be one of the daughters too. Hmmm.

I'm just guessing here - I'm no student of mendelian statistics or anything. [i just had to use that word here somewhere - sorry ]

You seem to have read up on it a lot. What would the likely result be if the two persons whose DNA is compared were grandmother and granddaughter?

[ilgitano]

Actually - I think a brother or sister of the mother being one of the real parents could give a result like that. But, the mother is the only representative of her family in Thailand - she emigrated from China 30 odd years ago. Could be one of the daughters too. Hmmm.

I'm just guessing here - I'm no student of mendelian statistics or anything. [i just had to use that word here somewhere - sorry ]

You seem to have read up on it a lot. What would the likely result be if the two persons whose DNA is compared were grandmother and granddaughter?

I may be wrong in my calculations here - I recall this from school way way back.

1. For a sibling - brother or sister - of the mother, on average 1/2 of the genes should be the same as the mother.

2. Grandparents - the mothers parents - 1/2 the mothers genes match each parent.

3. For children of the mother, again, 1/2 the genes come from the mother.

So for all 3 cases, I would expect to see half the exclusions showing than would show for a completely unrelated individual. 2-6 exclusions. Of course you can only suspect this if you see a small number (2-3 exclusions) as a larger number overlaps the random-other-parent range of 4-12.

That, under the circumstances then, is a reasonable result. As raised earlier in this thread by Bina in fact. Given that her only family here are her daughters, it could be that one of the daughters is the real mother.

Hmmmm.

Edited August 29, 2012 by ilgitano

[lopburi3]

Given that her only family here are her daughters, it could be that one of the daughters is the real mother.

That happens very, very often here that grand parents will takeover care of a child and raise as there own with single parents as grandparents have the time they do not have.

[Maestro]

ilgitano, in your OP you mentioned that your GF's younger sister is 11 years old. What is the age of her older sister?

[thequietman]

hi,

sorry if this is a daft question. when you say blood work, do you mean DNA testing or just plain blood type?

could the thai authorities have assumed because she had a different blood type that the mother, then she wasnt hers. some kids have different blood groups than their respective parents, this is quite normal.

sorry if I am way off the mark here but you know how silly thai officials can be.

good luck no matter what happens.

[ilgitano]

ilgitano, in your OP you mentioned that your GF's younger sister is 11 years old. What is the age of her older sister?

Apologies, she's actually 13 - hey I see her maybe twice a year! Terrible memory for birthdays and all.

Three sisters in all - 13yr, 25yr and 39yr (GF is 39yr) No other blood relations of the mother. Emigrated from China maybe 30years ago via Laos when her husband died.

The 25yr girl has a 7yr(?) old son, and my GF (39) has a daughter (25yr) and a son (22yr)

And yes, my GF has a daughter the same age as her sister. The sister was born one month before GFs daughter.

The 13yr old sister is the spitting image of the 25yr old sister. Not having papers we're not 100% sure of the ages of the 13yr of the 39yr GF. Sister could be 12 yrs old for example. We're pretty sure of the 25yr old girls true age though (born one month before GFs daughter, and she has papers)

My GF was working in Bangkok for the duration of the pregnancy and the birth.

[ilgitano]

hi,

sorry if this is a daft question. when you say blood work, do you mean DNA testing or just plain blood type?

could the thai authorities have assumed because she had a different blood type that the mother, then she wasnt hers. some kids have different blood groups than their respective parents, this is quite normal.

sorry if I am way off the mark here but you know how silly thai officials can be.

good luck no matter what happens.

First line of the report is a blood test. From there they go on to 16 different points on the DNA of them both.

I just got the story of why she has no birth papers. To get the papers, the mother has to present herself at the police station with the baby and have an officer sign off on it. She did that, but the officer refused to sign off. He said she was an opium addict, and he wasn't going to sign off.

In other words he required baksheesh and she didn't have it.

True she was an opium addict. She came from china with nothing, and in a poor village she was the poorest. She doesn't use now since it is too hard to get and too expensive, and of course has serious consequences in getting and using it these days. Forced to go cold turkey. My GF had to grow up in that, and she's one of the finest people and best buddhists I know.

[ilgitano]

Given that her only family here are her daughters, it could be that one of the daughters is the real mother.

That happens very, very often here that grand parents will takeover care of a child and raise as there own with single parents as grandparents have the time they do not have.

But if this is the case here, nobody knows it. There would be no reason for my GF to hide it that that I am aware of (got 25yr daughter and 22 yr son already, no reason to hide a third)

Mayhaps the daughter of the 25yr old girl? The ages are right at the edge of whats reasonable.

My GF was working in Bangkok over the pregnancy and birth, so did not witness it. She was sold into marriage against her will (3000THB - 1987) and never forgave her mother for that. She has been on better terms only over the last five years or so, so it may be that she doesn't know everything.

Edited August 30, 2012 by ilgitano