When her husband fled China in 2019 to escape a police crackdown on dissidents, Lu Lina thought she and their young son could soon join him in safety abroad.
She did not know that she would be forced to move house, that her 8-year-old son would be effectively kicked out of school and that border police would block her from leaving the country over the next three years. In the end, the couple had to resort to filing for divorce in China to get around the exit ban.
