Fatima Azzaz and Mansour Al Timani were forced to separate in 2006 after her brothers persuaded judges that her husband was not of sufficiently prestigious tribal stock.

It is one of a series of cases that have drawn international criticism of human rights in Saudi Arabia, a key US ally which is also the world’s top oil exporter.

‘I met Fatima and Mansour and they are both in a terrible state, they are both suffering,’ Yakin Erturk, UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on violence against women said.

‘I have been assured by the authorities this issue will be dealt with and, God willing, they will reunite,’ she told reporters after a 10-day fact-finding trip to the country of 24 million.

Fatima Azzaz is being held in a government home for orphans with a young son. She refuses to return to her family home as required by a court order divorcing her from her husband, who has custody of their daughter.

‘It has no basis in Islam, that’s for sure, because in Islam everybody is equal,’ said Erturk, a Muslim from Turkey.

In December, King Abdullah issued a ‘pardon’ to a 19-year-old woman who judges condemned to 200 lashes for being with an unrelated man when a group of seven kidnapped and raped her.

The royal intervention followed international pressure and was met with a call by the US administration for the Saudi judiciary to heed the message to avoid such cases.

Erturk said judicial reform would be key to removing a host of barriers to women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, one of the most conservative countries in the world that bans women from driving and segregates them through a system of ‘male guardianship’. ‘As a basis we need to establish the rule of law. This is not everything but this is a prerequisite for protecting human rights,’ she said.

The king said in October he wanted to reform the judiciary, dominated by clerics of hardline Wahhabi Islam. Plans are underway to put laws into writing, but reforms could take years.

An official Saudi delegation faced tough questioning last month from the UN women’s rights panel in Geneva which said women faced restrictions in virtually all aspects of life.

Liberal forces in government are keen to push reforms but diplomats say they face tough opposition from the clerical establishment backed by some powerful Saudi royals.