Sky Tracks Down 'Abducted' Girl In Tripoli

Sky News has tracked down a young woman who was taken from England by her Libyan father without her mother's consent 19 years ago.

Ayesha Shirif, 22, was born in England but lives with her father Khaled in Tripoli.

But when the uprising against Colonel Gaddafi began she saw an opportunity to try to escape in the chaos to be with her mother in England.

It was a desperate attempt that failed and she has not been allowed to communicate with her mother since.

Ayesha went to the port to try to get on a ship evacuating British citizens but Libyan officials would not allow her to be part of the evacuation because she was a woman travelling alone.

Eventually when she realised she would not be able to board the ship, she admitted to her father that she had tried to run away.

She told him where she was and her angry father took her home.

That was in March and he has refused to allow any contact between the mother and daughter since.

I have known Ayesha and her mother Tracey since we filmed them and other mothers being reunited in Tripoli for a Sky News documentary - Libya: The Stolen Children - last summer.

The British mothers had married Libyan men in the UK. Their husbands had taken their children back to Libya without the mothers' consent leaving them devastated.

Ayesha was taken from England by her father when she was just three.

I went to her father's house in Tripoli to try to speak to her.

When I went to her father's house in Tripoli, Khaled, wearing a white vest top and sunglasses, at first blocked the doorway and refused to speak to me.

It took nearly 45 minutes to eventually persuade him to allow me to phone Tracey so I could put her on the phone to Ayesha.

Shy and aware her father was watching, Ayesha accepted the mobile phone telling her mother that her father had taken her phone from her.

The short conversation culminated with Ayesha telling her mother she loves her.

When I asked her why she went to the port, she explained simply: "I wanted to go to England to see my mum."

Libya has not signed up to international protocols to get abducted children returned to their country of origin.

Khaled insists his actions are in his daughter's best interests.

He has always said he wanted Ayesha to be raised a Muslim and to live in a Muslim country.

But he has always felt confident knowing under Colonel Gaddafi there was no law forcing him to do anything else.