FAQs
Ten Questions We All Have — and Me, His Mom: The Enforced Disappearance of My Son, Jacob David Le
A Canadian child vanished under the weight of his own country’s silence. For nearly five years, and since my son was born, I have waited for the law to mean something.
My son’s disappearance, enabled by a Canadian court order and sustained by government inaction, now stands as a test of Canada’s integrity under international law.
1. Was the Canadian Court Order That Sent Jacob to Vietnam Lawful or a Violation of His Rights?
On January 31, 2024, Justice Nakonechny issued an order compelling Jacob’s surrender to his father for travel to Vietnam, to be enforced by police if his mother did not comply.
The constitutional question is: Can a Canadian court compel a citizen child into a non-Hague jurisdiction under threat of physical force, in a way that violates the right to life, liberty, and security of the person, equality and non-discrimination, and protection against arbitrary separation from a parent?
It may be ultra vires, beyond the court’s jurisdiction, particularly when their enforcement places the child beyond Canada’s legal protections.
I believe the order was unlawful.
2. Did the Canadian State Enable an Enforced Disappearance?
Under the Enforced Disappearance Convention, enforced disappearance includes any deprivation of liberty followed by refusal to acknowledge the fate or whereabouts of the person, when the State fails to act. Jacob’s removal and Canada’s continued inaction, despite formal notice by Vietnamese police, satisfies these elements.
The Ho Chi Minh City Police Notice, formally acknowledged a criminal complaint regarding Jacob’s wrongful retention and notified Canada through its Consulate. That notice proves Canada had actual knowledge, creating a positive duty to act.
Yet instead of fulfilling that duty, I believe Canada has deliberately delayed and restricted my access to information that I have a legal and constitutional right to receive as Jacob’s mother and as a victim entitled to protection.
These delays and obstructions have prevented me from being informed of critical decisions, communications, and findings that directly affect my son’s safety and my ability to seek remedy.
Failure to exercise diplomatic protection after formal notification constitutes State acquiescence under international law (Velásquez Rodríguez v. Honduras, Inter-Am. Ct. H.R., 1988).
3. What Happened to the CAS Records and Why Was No International Child Protection Mechanism Engaged?
On May 22, 2025, Justice Diamond ordered the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto (CAS) to disclose its child protection records—over a year after Jacob’s disappearance.
These records could have been critical in evaluating the risks of international removal before the court compelled Jacob’s handover.
Despite the court’s direction, CAS has not provided the records. This refusal, especially in light of prior efforts to obtain them—represents a serious failure in the duty to protect.
The omission also raises a broader questions like: why was Canada’s branch of International Social Services (ISS) (the agency mandated to coordinate cross-border child protection) not engaged?
ISS exists precisely to prevent children from being removed to jurisdictions where their safety cannot be monitored or guaranteed. Yet Global Affairs Canada did not raise the possibility of involving ISS until September 2025—more than 18 months after Jacob’s abduction—despite being fully aware that international child-protection mechanisms were available from the outset.
In the immediate aftermath of Jacob’s disappearance, I independently reached out to ISS and was connected with a Vietnamese partner organization. While there was initial contact, that organization soon went silent, leaving me without support or a clear path forward.
Both the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto and Global Affairs Canada had the authority, and responsibility, to activate international safeguards. Their failure to do so is not just a missed opportunity; it constitutes a breach of Canada’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which requires states to take all necessary measures to protect children from harm. It also undermines the rule-of-law principles of timely disclosure and procedural fairness that form the foundation of Canada’s child-welfare system.
What emerges is a systemic failure. One that enabled a vulnerable Canadian child to be sent beyond the reach of the very protection mechanisms designed to prevent this exact outcome.
4. How Has International Law Been Breached?
Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, sections require the protection of life, security, and equality. Jacob was deprived of liberty and protection through State enforcement.
Under the Criminal Code sections, it prohibits abduction and concealment, yet ongoing concealment abroad has not been properly investigated. The Convention obliges States to preserve a child’s family identity and protect against separation, yet Jacob’s contact has been denied and his whereabouts concealed to his own mother.
The International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance requires prevention and remedy, yet Canada’s awareness coupled with inaction constitutes acquiescence.
The Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, requires the protection of nationals abroad, yet there has been no démarche or consular intervention to secure Jacob’s safety.
5. How Has Media Coverage Driven, Not Followed, Government Action?
An analysis of seven major news reports shows a consistent lag between public reporting and official movement.
On May 10, 2024, CityNews first covered Jacob’s disappearance and my search in Vietnam; although a diplomatic note had been issued April 22, the next follow-up came only after coverage, on July 12.
On May 26, 2024, The Sun in London framed the story as an international abduction, after which the Canadian Embassy requested confirmation from Vietnam that same July.
On September 14, 2024, Global News highlighted Vietnam’s acknowledgment of the criminal complaint; Global Affairs issued diplomatic notes September 17 through 23.
On September 19, 2024, CTV News published “Worst Nightmare,” and Global Affairs drafted an internal briefing September 23.
On January 1, 2025, The Toronto Star published my holiday reflection; notes were issued January 2 and 23.
On July 18, 2025, Global News confirmed a lapse in Vietnam correspondence; a new note was sent in August 2025, though it remains unpublished.
The pattern is unmistakable: each wave of media exposure is followed within weeks by government correspondence, a record of reactive diplomacy rather than proactive protection.
6. Why Does Canada Continue to Diminish a Disappearance as a “Consular Matter”?
Even after Vietnam’s Criminal Police formally classified the case as a criminal matter, Global Affairs Canada continued to frame Jacob’s disappearance as “a consular matter” or “a parental abduction.” That language erases the gravity of the violation and redefines a State-enabled disappearance as a private dispute.
This deliberate reframing retraumatizes a mother already living with the enforced absence of her child. Each official communication that reduces Jacob’s disappearance to an administrative category, while failing to acknowledge the criminal findings of Vietnamese authorities or Canadian history, compounds the psychological harm and erodes faith in the State’s duty to protect.
Canadian authorities have cleared Jacob’s INTERPOL Yellow Notice, effectively erasing one of the few remaining mechanisms to locate and safeguard him. No explanation was provided to his me. This act of bureaucratic erasure denies a disappeared child visibility in international law-enforcement systems, and denies his mother recognition as a victim entitled to truth and redress.
Such conduct violates the spirit and letter of international human-rights law. Under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, victims, including the relatives of the disappeared, have the right to know the truth about the circumstances of the disappearance and the fate of their loved ones.
Canada’s minimization of Jacob’s case, coupled with its unilateral clearing of the Yellow Notice, stands in stark violation of those obligations.
By refusing to name this for what it is, Canada fails a child and betrays the very principles of accountability and compassion that it professes to champion.
7. What Does This Mean for Canada–Vietnam Relations?
Canada and Vietnam are bound by trade and a shared diaspora and commitments under international law, including the ASEAN–Canada Strategic Partnership.
Toronto itself is home to a vibrant Vietnamese community (thank you for supporting Jacob), built in part through Canada’s humanitarian response during and after the Vietnam War, when thousands were welcomed and helped to rebuild their lives here.
Those bonds of compassion and shared history should strengthen, not silence, Canada’s voice when the rights of a Canadian child are at stake.
Yet despite repeated and exhaustive efforts by Jacob’s mother to bring these violations to the attention of Global Affairs Canada, her appeals have been met with silence or deflection.
A ministerial-level démarche to Vietnam would not endanger bilateral relations. On the contrary, it would reaffirm the principles both nations have pledged to uphold: respect for due process, the protection of children, and the pursuit of justice through lawful means.
By failing to act, Canada weakens its moral authority to advocate for human rights abroad. Each day of inaction undermines the integrity of its partnerships and its credibility before the international community.
In the context of Jacob’s disappearance, I feel this silence becomes complicity, and complicity erodes not only trust between governments, but the very foundation upon which diplomacy and justice must stand in Canada today.
8. What Accountability Mechanisms Remain?
Jacob’s case could trigger review by the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, as well as a domestic judicial review or Charter challenge against Global Affairs for failure to protect.
9. A Question That Should Never Have to Be Asked — Did Canadian authorities actually meet your child?
Yes, civil servants from the Canadian consulate in Vietnam met Jacob in person, with his father, and, as they informed me, “his family.”
Did they provide you any notice or opportunity to be present?
No, actually, they later went back on some of the updates they’d given me, like they never said them.
And how do you live with that?
This remains one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, one I am still unable to speak about fully. My request is that visibility be given to Jacob’s case so that his rights are upheld, as I continue the effort to reunite with him and bring him safely home.
10. The Central Question and the Test for Canada
Can a democratic state credibly claim to defend human rights abroad while failing to protect its own children at home?
It’s a question Canada must now confront, not in theory, but in the lived reality of a child: my son, Jacob. He was wrongfully taken and remains disappeared, not simply because of one individual’s actions, but because of the inaction of institutions entrusted to protect him.
This is not a private family matter. It is a test of law, of justice, and of the state’s obligation to uphold the rights of the child.
Throughout our legal struggle, I’ve witnessed how Canada’s family law systems can be manipulated and misused. They have enabled delay. They have permitted falsehoods, and even criminal conduct, to shape proceedings and the young life of a child. And in doing so, they have failed to protect a vulnerable child.
In Jacob’s case, decisions were not grounded in transparent, consistent application of the law. Instead, they relied on judicial discretion that, at times, seemed to reflect bias rather than balance.
When decisions appear inconsistent, arbitrary, or selective, public trust in our legal system begins to erode. How are families meant to place their faith in such a system? Are we truly applying the law equally and fairly?
And how is it that, in a society that holds lawyers in such high regard, so many are permitted to act with indifference, or even hostility, toward the very children whose rights the system exists to protect?
These are the questions all Canadians should be asking. Because the implications extend far beyond one family. They reach to the core of our justice system, our international reputation, and our moral and legal obligations under the law.
Canada is a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, along with other international instruments that require states to take active, ongoing steps to locate, protect, and return disappeared children. These obligations do not lapse with time. They do not expire through silence or inaction.
They remain until justice is served.
Jacob is still missing. And Canada is still bound.