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From People Magazine, September 21, 2019
Bethany Vierra’s daily routine begins at
sunrise, when she gets up to make pancakes or scrambled eggs for her young
daughter, Zaina, a curly haired 4-year-old. It’s the familiar prelude to happy
hours of coloring, reading inside their apartment and swimming in Riyadh, the
Saudi Arabian capital.
But for Vierra — a Washington state
native ensnared in a months-long custody battle for Zaina following an
acrimonious split from her husband — each morning also begins a new day of
dread.
At any moment, the 32-year-old yoga
instructor could be made to surrender her daughter
to the Saudi grandmother whom the little girl barely knows.
“Bethany and Zaina might never see each
other again,” Kathi Vierra, Bethany’s mom, tells PEOPLE.
Kathi is frank when describing the case:
“It’s gone on too long. It’s like that nightmare you keep having and you can’t
get rid of.”
Divorced from Zaina’s father, a Saudi
businessman, Bethany was recently judged too Western by a Saudi court to keep
custody of her daughter. She was blamed for wearing her hair uncovered and for
wearing a bikini while in the U.S., and the judge took issue with English — not
Arabic — being Zaina’s first language, as a sign of her failure to assimilate.
Bethany’s mother says that during the custody fight, Bethany’s ex also pointed
to a Facebook photo of her doing a handstand and brought up the fact that she
had attended Burning Man, which is reputed for its artistic and libertine
atmosphere.
Still, Bethany’s ex-husband, 35-year-old
Ghassan Alhaidari, did not receive custody either. Finding neither parent
preferable, the judge instead ordered Zaina to be raised by her paternal
grandmother — despite previous concerns from both Bethany and Alhaidari that
the grandmother could be a damaging influence on the girl.
The judge cited the grandmother’s
education and her high status. “Additionally,” he wrote, “the criticisms
against [her] are not as strong as what was presented against the parents.”
The judge noted in his ruling that
Alhaidari and his mother were living together but wrote that he did not expect
that to continue, “knowing that it is in men’s nature not to stay at home and
not honor/fulfill the parental role themselves.”
…..
More complicating still is that Bethany’s
ex-husband is his mother’s own “guardian,” a State Department source says.
Bethany officially lost custody in July,
but the court agreed that Zaina should remain with her during the appeal, the
Vierra family says.
If the appeal goes against her, Bethany
must relinquish Zaina to her former mother-in-law and seek permission in court
to visit the child she has raised from infancy.
Although the judge cited Sharia (or
Islamic) law in his multi-faceted ruling, Bethany does not cast fault on the
country that is structured around conservative religious principles.
“Islamic law would protect my right as a
mother and my daughter’s right to be in my care until she reaches the age of
maturity,” Bethany says.
Nevertheless, in practice, Western women
typically don’t retain custody of their children in Saudi Arabia, according to
international family law expert Jeremy Morley. “I don’t know of any Western
woman winning [full] custody of dual-national children in a Sharia court,”
Morley says.
Even when she retains custody in Saudi
Arabia, a Western mother does not have full rights regarding where her child
lives. The State Department cautions that “in [a] Saudi Arabia divorce, Saudi
courts rarely grant permission for the foreign parent to leave the country with
the children born during the marriage, even if he or she has been granted
physical custody.”
