Layal Araji: A Lebanese Mother Fighting a System That Sanctions the Loss of Her Children

By Sharika Wa Laken

In Lebanon, violations against women take many forms, but few are as cruel as those that target mothers, forcing them to bargain over their own children, sometimes under a “legal” pretext and sometimes by exploiting loopholes in the law.

Under the banner of “patriarchal rights,” fathers carry out abductions and attempt to smuggle children abroad, relying on judicial gaps and administrative complicity, both rooted in patriarchy. At airport gates, motherhood becomes a battlefield: mothers stand on the edge of losing their children, while justice remains captive to male-dominated personal status laws.

Religious personal status courts reinforce male authority, granting men the upper hand in determining the family’s fate. Biased rulings are issued “in the name of Sharia’a,” while mediation and influence are used to twist the law to serve the powerful. In this reality, motherhood becomes an unequal struggle, and justice a distant dream lost between outdated legal texts and personal interests.

In this context, Layal Araji tells Sharika Wa Laken her story, a long battle against her ex-husband (N.A.) and a judiciary that failed to protect her. Her story mirrors that of many women prosecuted by the law instead of being protected by it.

The Beginning of the Story

In 2019, Layal traveled with her then-husband N.A. and their three children, Ibrahim (born 2006), Fatima (born 2012), and Maher (born 2018), from Canada to Lebanon. Her husband convinced her that it would be a short family visit. What seemed like a temporary trip quickly became a trap: he confiscated their passports and announced that returning to Canada “would not be happening anytime soon.”

What started as a form of pressure soon turned into daily control, surveillance, restriction of movement, and constant threats to take away her children.

Between 2019 and 2021, the psychological and emotional abuse escalated until Layal filed for divorce in September 2021. She thought the law would be her refuge, but instead she encountered a judicial and religious system that reproduces patriarchal control under the pretext of “the children’s best interests.”

When the divorce was finalized on November 17, 2021, the pressure did not stop. It took new forms, frivolous lawsuits, threats, denial of financial support, and the use of the children as tools of blackmail in a relentless conflict.

The nightmare reached its peak on August 30, 2024, when her ex-husband attempted what he had threatened for years: trying to smuggle their two younger children out of the country without her knowledge, leaving the eldest behind in Lebanon.

The Abduction Attempt: How My Children Were Put in Danger

On the evening of August 30, Layal’s ex-husband picked up Fatima and Maher at 3 p.m. for a visit, as allowed by the custody arrangement. Layal was at her home in Anjar, while Ibrahim, the eldest, was out with friends.

Around 7:40 p.m., she received a call from a blocked number in Beirut. “Madam, your son and daughter are at the airport,” said an officer from General Security. “Their father is trying to travel with them, and they’re crying. Are you aware of this?”

Layal was stunned. She told the officer she had no knowledge of any travel plans or even of new passports being issued. She rushed to her parents’ home in Barr Elias, where they advised her to file an official complaint immediately. At the police station, the officers were sympathetic but pointed out that under Lebanese law, a father has the legal right to obtain passports for his children, making the situation even more dangerous.

Layal later learned that her ex-husband had told the children he couldn’t get Lebanese passports because she refused to sign, then asked if they’d agree for him to take her to court to force her to sign. When they refused, he told them he didn’t want any trouble. This was recorded in a voice message he sent to their eldest son three days before the airport incident, on August 26. He had also told Fatima and Maher in a handwritten note to pack swimsuits, saying they were “going to a hotel in Beirut.”

When they arrived at the airport, Fatima tried to run away in the parking lot, but her father grabbed her, saying: “Where do you think you’re going? You’re only thirteen. If you want to complain about me, do it inside the airport, it’s better to be locked in than outside.”

He knew how terrified Fatima was of him and never expected her to speak up. But she did. She approached a General Security officer and said, “Uncle, my parents are divorced. My father brought me here to travel without my mother’s knowledge. Please call her.” She gave them her mother’s number.

The officers immediately contacted Layal, allowing her to confirm the situation and begin the process of retrieving her children. Her ex-husband scolded Fatima violently, yelling: “You’ve ruined my life. You’ve cost me money and my future. You’ll have no food, no school, no allowance if you don’t travel with me today!”

But the officer intervened firmly: “There’s no law in the world that forbids a girl from talking to her mother,” he said, handing Fatima a phone to call Layal directly. Eventually, the authorities allowed Layal to collect her children, ending a terrifying night that exposed once again how Lebanese law leaves mothers and children vulnerable.

Who Protects the Children?

Passports Issued Without the Mother’s Signature Despite Her Refusal

Before the abduction attempt, tensions were already high regarding the children’s Canadian passports. About six months earlier, Layal had renewed her own passport, stating in the application that she had been divorced since 2021. Later, a passport officer called her, asking: “Mrs. Araji, you wrote that you’re divorced, so how did your ex-husband renew Fatima’s passport in 2023 and Maher’s in 2024, claiming you’re still married?”

Her ex-husband had told her it would be “easier” not to mention the divorce, especially given the political instability in Lebanon. She later discovered this was deception. As the custodial parent, she alone had the legal right to apply for and hold the children’s passports.

Canadian authorities requested the return of the passports and coordinated with her to retrieve them. Despite her ex-husband’s pressure, she successfully reclaimed them through official procedures. His supposed authority, an “urgent guardianship” order issued by Judge Abdel Rahman Sharqiyeh before the divorce in October 2021, was declared invalid. The only binding document was the official custody order granting her full custody, issued May 17, 2022.

Two weeks later, the local mukhtar (mayor), Ziad Al-Qadi, sent a message via an intermediary: “Your ex-husband wants you to sign the passports in Lebanon.” I refused. The mukhtar persisted for days, even contacting me on WhatsApp, until I told the intermediary that his role did not allow him to chase citizens to their homes. The mukhtar then admitted that her ex-husband was pressuring him, warning, “Either you come to sign the passports, or he’ll take legal action.”

Layal informed General Security, who confirmed: “Passports cannot be issued without your signature, you alone have that authority.” Yet somehow, they were issued without her consent.

She asked: “If General Security assumes a mother’s approval by default when a passport is issued, what happens when I never signed or consented? And if my ex-husband’s guardianship lets him obtain passports, does it also allow him to travel with the children without my knowledge, even though I am the legal custodian?”

Absentee Divorce and Forged Waivers

On November 17, 2021, the divorce was finalized in absentia at the Sunni Sharia’a Court in Barr Elias. Layal initially agreed to a simple custody arrangement, her ex-husband would see the children from Thursday after school until Friday evening, and again from Saturday to Sunday evening.

However, weeks later, she discovered that the custody file had “disappeared,” and her lawyer had withdrawn under pressure from the other side. Six months later, she obtained a new custody order, but it had been altered. It granted joint custody, allowing her ex-husband to take the children every weekend and holiday and “whenever necessary,” meaning he could demand them at any time.

After consulting several lawyers, Layal appealed to the Higher Sharia’a Court, which ordered her custody reinstated. The presiding judge’s tone toward her changed, and when her ex-husband refused to appear without an official summons, she was told to sign a new agreement, this time on a blank sheet of paper, to “avoid further conflict.” The decision was formalized in 2022. The judge later asked her not to mention that the original agreement had been altered, but to say she had “changed her mind,” to protect both him and the court clerk.

Violence Against the Children: “Family Matters, Settle Them Among Yourselves”

On one occasion, her ex-husband arrived to take the children by force. He pushed Layal violently, grabbed their daughter, and threw her into the car. Ibrahim, their eldest, tried to follow but fell out of the moving car. He survived, but was traumatized.

Their younger son Maher began showing signs of severe anxiety and depression. A psychologist confirmed that “the child suffers from acute anxiety due to repeated exposure to shouting and violence.”

When Layal reported the abuse, the Sharia judge told her, “Be patient, one day the children will be deprived of inheritance.” Another cleric added, “In the Sharia court, we don’t recognize ‘emotional’ or ‘psychological’ abuse, these are Western feminist ideas that ruin families.” In the civil court, the response wasn’t better: when she mentioned her ex-husband’s violence, the judge said, “Maybe he was just joking with the boy,” and added, “Your case has become a public issue, resolve it peacefully.”

But nothing was resolved. Instead, both the Sharia’a and civil courts empowered her ex-husband to continue his abuse, culminating in the attempted abduction of the children.

Court Hearings

A hearing was held on Tuesday, October 14, 2025, at 9 a.m. The juvenile affairs officer spoke with Layal and the children. When she asked about next steps, she was told that the decision rested with Judge Ikram Shaer, who might summon the ex-husband, issue a protection order, or continue to monitor the case.

For Layal, the main demand remains the same: to secure real protection for her two children and ensure their safety and stability away from violence and threats.

Turning the Case Into a Public Issue

“Every time I sought justice,” Layal said, “I was met with indifference, from Sharia’a and civil courts alike, from prosecutors who ignored psychological reports, and from lawyers who withdrew out of fear or compromise. Four years after my divorce, I still face the same system that legitimized every violation, but I am no longer afraid to speak.”

Her story is not unique. It is the story of every woman forced to sign papers she never read, accused of rebellion for claiming her rights, and deprived of her children by a patriarchal legal order. Layal’s case is not a domestic dispute, it is a chain of legal and human violations: an absentee divorce, forged custody waivers, threats and physical abuse, negligence by security agencies, and financial coercion under the guise of motherhood.

Law Between Protection and Violation

Layal’s case exposes deep flaws in Lebanon’s legal and religious systems, where the law often becomes a tool of pressure and discrimination rather than protection. Ignoring evidence of psychological and physical abuse reveals how children’s right to safety is routinely dismissed, even when proof exists.

Procedurally, the violations span biased lawyers and judges, failures by security forces and prosecutors, and manipulation of passport procedures before both Lebanese and Canadian authorities, all without accountability.

Her experience reflects a systemic pattern of women’s and children’s rights violations. Sharia’a courts in Lebanon continue to reproduce male dominance, unchecked by civil oversight or institutional accountability. Current Lebanese law provides no real mechanism to hold religious judges accountable or to protect mothers, leaving women with an impossible choice: submission “for the children’s sake” or confrontation with a system that grants near-absolute power to the father.

What Layal and all women like her need is not sympathy, but a transparent and independent investigation into the manipulation of divorce and custody files, the failure of Sharia’a courts to recognize psychological evidence, the negligence of prosecutors and security forces, and the complicity that allowed attempted abduction and document forgery to occur.

A law that fails to protect mothers and safeguard children’s safety is not a law at all, it is a shield for injustice.