Mom reunites with daughter spirited away nearly 14 years ago

The moment she spotted the young woman in the puffy silver jacket, Ginger Mayes screamed her daughter's name and rushed the escalator, oblivious of the other passengers streaming into the baggage-claim area at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Zarminah Al-Rabiah stepped off the escalator and into her mother's arms. The women clutched each other in a minutes-long hug, sobbing and then laughing.

The airport reunion Tuesday afternoon was the first time Mayes had seen her daughter in nearly 14 years, since the day her ex-husband spirited Zarminah, her older sister and younger brother away to Saudi Arabia.

"Oh, baby, oh my baby, oh my God, you're beautiful," Mayes said, standing before her 20-year-old daughter.

"Oh, Mama," Zarminah replied. "I love you, Mom."

Though tired from her 24-hour journey from Bahrain via London, Zarminah — dressed in the silver jacket, jeans and a pair of peep-toe pumps — couldn't hide her happiness at being home in the United States.

"I'm so happy — it's like freedom, you know?" said Zarminah, who plans to live with her mother.

"I never had freedom there. I've been wearing that black thing for 14 years ... and I just want to walk without the abaya," Zarminah said, referring to the traditional garment Saudi women must wear in public in accordance with Islamic laws of modesty. "I will respect Islam, but I don't have to cover up."

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, family members abduct more than 200,000 American children each year, though it's unclear how many are taken overseas. And while more than 60 countries are parties to the Hague Convention on International Child Abduction — which gives parents a legal mechanism to reunite with their children — Turkey is the only Muslim country to participate.

Mayes, 49, of Lynnwood, said she fell in love with her ex-husband in Norfolk, Va., where she was working and he was stationed with the Saudi Arabian navy. They married and their first daughter, Rimah, was born in 1984 in Montana.

Her ex took Rimah back to Saudi Arabia when the girl was 2, leaving behind Mayes, who was pregnant with Zarminah.

Zarminah was born in 1987; two years later, Mayes agreed to give the marriage another chance and moved to Saudi Arabia with Zarminah and her two daughters from her first marriage. While there, she gave birth to a son, Abdulaziz.

According to Mayes, an American TV reporter and three Navy Seals helped her escape from Saudi Arabia with her five children in 1991. She divorced her husband the following year. Then, one day in June 1994, when Mayes was out shopping in Helena, Mont., a family member took $500 in payment from her ex and led him to the children, who were hiding out with a family friend, she said. He took his three children back to Saudi Arabia.

Mayes said she had no idea where her children were until 2005, when she met a man in Bahrain online who had a nephew in Saudi Arabia. The nephew turned out to be friends with Mayes' son and passed along a phone number.

Rimah is now married and living with her husband and infant son, Mayes said. Abdulaziz is finishing high school but also plans on reuniting with his mother, who works at the Toys R Us store at Northgate Mall.

As a male, Abdulaziz can leave Saudi Arabia any time he wants. But Zarminah needed her father's permission. Under pressure from U.S. embassy officials, his daughter and his new wife, Zarminah's father finally relented: He bought her plane ticket and took her to the airport in Bahrain himself.

"My dad was telling us, 'Your mom doesn't want you,' but we never believed it," Zarminah said. "I've been crying for five years. But he's my father, so I can't get mad at my dad."

For Mayes, it was surreal seeing her daughter after so many years.

"She was a little girl when she left me, and now she's a woman," Mayes said. "To all the mothers out there in the same situation, never give up hope, no matter how long it takes."

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com