Excerpt:
Imagine you were a teenage girl in Pakistan, and your parents married you off very young. The marriage is a disaster but you have no rights. You flee with your daughter to the U.S., you hide out for two years until the detective he hires finds you. In Pakistan, under the Islamic law there, the means of obtaining a divorce is only available to a man, but never of course to a woman. He demands full custody of your daughter. Oh, and he's accused you of adultery.
You consider flying to Pakistan, to contest the divorce, but adultery is a crime under Islamic Law in Pakistan, a crime which is punishable by death. You will literally be arrested the moment you de-board the plane, in Karachi. You could face prison time, or even be stoned to death. And in Pakistan, your testimony under Islamic law is worth only half that of a man's. Then you remember, you're in America now and you have rights.
So, you petition the American courts, filing for a real divorce. But unfortunately, your husband has a Pakistani judge as an expert witness who he flies in to testify in the Maryland court – and the judge accepts his view of Shariah's "best interests of the child" as the same as Maryland's "best interests of the child. You and your daughter are simply outgunned.