Plight of Jewish ''chained women'' trapped in broken marriages.

In Jewish society, there are estimated to be thousands of women in broken marriages where their husband refuses to give them the necessary religious document enabling a divorce. In some cases, the wife can remain trapped in the situation for years, unable to remarry or move on. Below is the story of Shoshana.

Shoshana is lonely. She has been raising her three children alone for almost 15 years. She is a not a widow, she is not divorced, she is what is known in Hebrew as an aguna, or a "chained" woman, because though she wants to, as a Jewish woman, she cannot free herself from her marriage to her husband.

In Judaism, in order for a couple to divorce, the woman needs to ask her husband for a "get", a Jewish divorce. But some husbands refuse.

Shoshana lives in Israel and her husband lives in the United States, and despite a local Jewish Court requiring him to give her a divorce, he has not yet done so.

As a devout Jew, she is forbidden from dating, remarrying or having any sort of relationship with another man until she is divorced.

"A woman whose husband refuses to give her a divorce really is held hostage," says Shoshana. "It's the ultimate form of emotional abuse because he's confining her to loneliness."

Shoshana's husband, Aaron, says he is fighting for custody and visitation rights for their now-teenage children.

In an email, he wrote that his wife is refusing to accept a divorce which allows him "any reasonable, guaranteed visitation or custody arrangements" and that he would be willing to give her a divorce that meets his conditions.

He claims that had she not erected "barriers to my having a guaranteed and normative relationship with my children then we would both be remarried (hopefully) by now".

Mutual agreement:

Just as a man must give a divorce, a woman must accept one, but today in Israel, there are only one or two men who are considered "chained", compared to over 100 women, according to Rabbi Eliahu Maimon, head of Agunot for the Jewish Court Administration.

Under Jewish law, a man must give his agreement before his wife can get divorced

"In Jewish law, marriage is done with the full agreement of both sides, so when you divorce, you also need the agreement of both sides," explains Rabbi Maimon.

"Marriage is a new spiritual reality between a man, a woman, and God. It's holy, and when you want to break that spiritual connection, it has to be done properly."

In ancient times, an aguna was a woman whose husband went off to war and never returned. It was unknown whether he was alive or dead, and the woman could not remarry without proof.

Today those cases are few and far between, and any woman whose husband refuses to appear before a Jewish Court for divorce proceedings is considered an aguna.

In the meantime, Shoshana remains imprisoned inside her marriage. She is now 43 years old, and while when she was younger, she considered the possibility of remarrying and moving on with her life, she fears those days have already passed her by.

"I'm not allowed to date other men, I'm not allowed to spend time alone with other men," she says, or she will be considered "an adulterous woman."

While Shoshana is not sure if she will ever remarry, she still holds out hope that one day she will be free to decide for herself.

"Somebody in my situation always has hope that maybe someday he'll just decide, maybe something will happen, and it will finally convince him to let me go."