Sam Judy, The Barbed Wire

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This article was published in partnership with The Barbed Wire .

On the evening of Feb. 11, 22-year-old Ward Sakeik sat on a plane from the U.S. Virgin Islands to Miami. She and her husband, Taahir Shaikh, were returning from their honeymoon, but he was sitting a few rows away. She didn’t look back at him — her handlers told her that even smiling at him could be considered a crime.

Sakeik, a wedding photographer who’s lived in Texas since the age of 9, hadn’t slept for two days. She’d spent nearly 36 hours confined to a small intake room at the Cyril E. King Airport in St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Tired, she kept her eyes on the book she’d brought on board. It was about marriage and relationships

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