A distraught Melbourne mother is trying to enlist the federal government's help in getting her 11-year-old daughter back home to Australia from Vietnam.
The Maidstone schoolgirl's father has taken her passport and left her stranded in the Asian country.
The girl - who can't be named for legal reasons - has been unable to leave Vietnam since late August after her father refused to return her passport, her mother says.
"An 11-year-old Australian girl is stuck in Asia when she wants to be back here," social justice campaigner Les Twentyman said on Monday as he and the mother made their way to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to ask for their help.
The girl has been staying with relatives in Saigon but is scared, her mother says.
"I'm very worried about her," she said.
"She's very sad. She's just lying in bed - when I call her she just cries and cries."
The mother and father have been separated since April but the family travelled to Vietnam together in July to visit relatives.
Her ex-husband said he would hold onto the family's passports for safekeeping, but later told his ex-wife they had been stolen.
After several failed attempts to contact him again, she went to the Australian embassy and was reissued another passport.
But embassy staff said the daughter's passport could not be reissued without the father's signature.
The 31-year-old woman travelled back to Melbourne to try to find her ex-husband but has had limited success.
"My ex-husband remains elusive and unavailable and is not at all co-operative in assisting me to have our daughter return to Australia," she told DFAT in a letter.
Mr Twentyman says the federal government has the power to help the girl return home by waiving the requirement for her father to be a signatory to her passport renewal.
"I hope my daughter gets back soon. I can't live without her," the mother said.
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