RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) — In the summer of 2019, American Carly Morris flew to Saudi Arabia with her young daughter, hoping to spend a few weeks of quality time with the girl's Saudi father, Morris's ex-husband.

Three years later, Morris remains in the conservative desert kingdom, trapped in a prolonged and painful ordeal highlighting the power her ex-husband — and men like him — continue to wield over women under guardianship laws.

Soon after they landed in Riyadh, Morris's ex-husband seized their travel documents and arranged for the girl, eight-year-old Tala, to become a Saudi citizen, ensuring he could bar her from leaving.

That has left Morris effectively stranded, her savings depleted and credit cards maxed out, in a country where she does not speak the language and cannot legally work.

She has been forced to borrow money and food from strangers to scrape by.

"I will not leave without my daughter," a defiant but tearful Morris, 34, told AFP in a phone interview from the house her ex-husband rents for them in the central city of Buraidah.

Morris could soon face further legal trouble.

This month she received a summons from Saudi prosecutors indicating she was under investigation for "disturbing public order," a development Morris believes is linked to social media posts about her case.

She was informed a few days ago that she had been placed under a travel ban, according to an electronic notice seen by AFP.

The family of Morris's ex-husband did not respond to requests for comment.

Countless trapped

Morris's situation "is unfortunately not an isolated case," Bethany Al-Haidari of the New York-based Human Rights Foundation said.

"There are countless women and children trapped in similarly degrading conditions in Saudi Arabia," she said.

Lawyers and experts say the Saudi system is stacked against women in her situation, especially foreigners, who often face a wrenching choice between staying in the kingdom with their children or returning home without them.

Out of 150,000 marriages registered in 2020 in Saudi Arabia, some 4,500 were unions involving a Saudi and a foreigner, according to the Saudi statistics authority.

That same year, authorities recorded 4,200 divorces in Saudi-foreigner marriages.

Nasreen al-Ghamdi, a Saudi lawyer, described the kingdom's restrictions on where foreign mothers can take their children as evidence that "the state protects Saudi children to avoid their exposure to problems abroad."

Some foreign women ultimately decide to give up and go home, even if that requires a painful separation.

American Madison Randolph, 23, told AFP she "felt like a caged animal" in her marriage to a "controlling" Saudi man.

Once she discovered she was pregnant with her second child, she negotiated with him to travel to the United States for a month.

She has resolved not to return, even though she left their nine-month-old son behind.

"It was a difficult decision," she told AFP by phone.

"I wanted to save myself and the fetus I was carrying."