Maryam and Yusuf

By Cotton Tree Trust
Updated: January 2026

This story reflects the experience of a young mother and her son who sought safety and stability in the UK after fleeing threats and persecution. Names and identifying details have been changed to protect their privacy. It is shared to highlight the human realities behind the legal and practical support provided by Cotton Tree Trust.

“I hate to lie,” says Maryam, a young mother from Lebanon with a 6 year-old son, Yusuf. “I had no choice. I had to leave.”

Maryam came to the UK in May 2022 on a tourist visa for which she paid a huge sum of money. She had spun a tale to the authorities about the importance of this visit to her relatives in the UK, and she asked me, “What else could I do?” In September 2021 her beloved husband, Taha, had died of Covid. Unlike many Lebanese men, Taha always treated women with respect, and he was proud of his wife. Maryam had recently acquired an MA in Finance and Banking, and she had been ready to bring in a substantial salary when Covid struck.

They were a young couple, deeply in love with each other and their bright little boy. The shock of her husband’s loss spiralled when Taha’s brother demanded that Maryam marry him. Not only was this demand culturally acceptable; it was seen as the right of a Muslim man whose brother has died to take possession of his widow and child. When Maryam refused, she received an official custody claim from him for the child.

Marriage with Taha’s brother would have been a disaster. Maryam would have been restricted in every area of her life, including her motherhood; she would have had to accept the strict Muslim upbringing for Yusuf that neither she nor Taha could bear. And her hard-won education would have come to nothing as she assumed the traditional role of a Muslim wife.

Taha’s brother did not accept her refusal. He threatened to strengthen his custody claim by knocking Maryam over in the street, disabling her and making it impossible for her to care for the child. Or he would throw hot oil in her face to make her ugly and undesirable to any other man. None of these threats are illegal in Lebanon, and Maryam had no protection. The police would do nothing and Taha’s entire family was plotting to hurt her and take the child.

A tourist visa to the UK was the only way she knew to escape.

She secretly planned her exit, and on 1 May 2022 she and Yusuf arrived at Heathrow. Luckily, she was placed in a reasonable hotel near Hyde Park. However, the food was terrible and much too spicy for the child. There were no cooking facilities, and they had little money beyond the paltry allowance provided by the Home Office. Their room was hardly more than a cupboard, with no space to play, and there were strict rules about noise. Yusuf started wetting the bed, and when he went to school had great difficulty going to the bathroom without his mother.

The teachers were sensitive to his difficulties and after a while he started to enjoy school. In January 2024, Maryam heard that her asylum claim had been accepted. This great news was followed, as it usually is, by the horror of homelessness. She was turned out of the Home Office accommodation where she and Yusuf had made a basic home a few weeks earlier when they were evicted from the hotel. The threat of homelessness hung over her, and she was terrified – all over again – of losing her son. She was haunted by stories (not without foundation) of children being taken away from their homeless parents by social services.

In these terrible circumstances, Maryam did everything in her power to provide stability and continuity for Yusuf. She was determined to keep him in the school that he knew and enjoyed, for he was still emotionally fragile. They were moved again and again, and keeping him in this school meant travelling long distances every day. At one point she was travelling an hour and a half to take him to school and collect him at the end of the day – six hours altogether daily. She never complained; she saw this as the price she had to pay to escape from a fate that would have been worse than death.

You could not find a more devoted mother. She cooks healthy food for Yusuf (he never eats junk food at home) and she encourages him to do sports and minimise screen use. Maryam sometimes feels lonely, but she never doubts that she did what she had to do. She keeps saying, “I had no choice.”

Yusuf is growing and learning, making friends, and is comfortable in the multicultural community of his school. Maryam completed a conversion course that would allow her to work in banking in the UK, and she is looking for work. She has a studio flat, and although it is cramped, she considers herself fortunate to be living near a park.

“There’s so much open space in London,” she says. “So many parks and playgrounds. Yusuf and I go there all the time. We are so lucky!”

Maryan’s strength and optimism have helped to sustain others in circumstances as challenging as her own. She and Yusuf always bring warmth and friendship to our meetings. When she reviewed this article, she wanted me to add the following paragraph.

“You helped me morally, psychologically, and financially as well. When we joined the Cotton Tree, we didn't feel like strangers in this country anymore. I really feel that I have a second family here, and I will never forget this. My son always feels happy and safe at the Cotton Tree. For a child who has lost his father and his home, this means more than I can say.”