A pregnant journalist working overseas was forced to turn to the Taliban for help attempting to get back to her home country.
Charlotte Bellis, a journalist who works for the publication Al Jazeera realized she was pregnant in September when she returned to her base in Doha, Qatar after having been deployed to Afghanistan. The Taliban had recently taken over, and as thousands fled the country, her partner Jim remained stuck in Kabul.
It is illegal to be pregnant and unmarried in Qatar, so during an appointment with a gynecologist in Doha, Bellis was advised either to get married or get out of the country as soon as possible.
Bellis and her partner decided to keep the pregnancy a secret until she was safely out of Qatar and back in New Zealand. She began to try and secure a spot in managed isolation and quarantine (MIQ) in her home country but found she would miss out on time again.
Bellis, who is 25 weeks pregnant with a daughter, said she has sent dozens of documents to her government in her battle to return home and had to turn to the Taliban for help in the meantime.
She resigned from AI Jazeera in November and was relieved to learn that New Zealand’s government planned to open its borders to citizens at the end of February. In the meantime, Bellis and Jim were forced to choose somewhere to wait, but the only place they had visas to live in was Afghanistan.
Bellis organized a meeting with senior Taliban contacts, asking if she would have a problem if she came to Kabul while pregnant. She recalled as she writes for the New Zealand Herald: “One translated for the others and they smiled. “No we’re happy for you, you can come and you won’t have a problem. Just tell people you are married and if it escalates, call us. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine.”
She finds being offered a safe haven by the Taliban as messed up as when the reopening happened. She and his partner had already talked to lawyers and submitted 59 documents in an attempt to secure an emergency hotel room, but on January 24, they woke up to an email to say they had been denied entry.
The rejection email claimed that their travel dates were insufficient and that MIQ claimed they did not provide any evidence of having scheduled medical treatment in New Zealand, prompting Bellis to wonder how they wanted her to prove that giving birth was a scheduled, time-critical medical treatment.
Bellis wrote: “I thought back to August, and how brutally ironic it was, that I had asked the Taliban what they would do to ensure the rights of women and girls. And now, I am asking the same question of my own government.”
Grant Robertson, deputy prime minister, said Ms. Bellis had been offered a voucher for a room after the government had insisted that she needed to reapply for a spot in the country’s completely occupied quarantine hotels.
Mr. Robertson said after she wrote in a column published in the New Zealand Herald last Saturday that New Zealand has refused to give her a place in its quarantine facility: “There is a place in MIQ (managed isolation and quarantine) for Miss Bellis, and I urge her to take it.”
Bellis said that the decision of who should get an emergency MIQ spot is not made on a level playing field, adding: “Who is more important-lets let MIQ decide.”
Bellis’ application is still under review, though her partner’s visa has been approved to allow him too, to apply for an emergency MIQ spot.
On her 30th week of pregnancy, she was already determined to leave so she quickly called her lawyer to ask for an appeal, as well as a friend in PR and a National Party MP. She learned that MIQ had reviewed her emergency allocation application and is now in progress.
Bellis said in a statement: “I will be returning to my home country New Zealand at the beginning of March to give birth to our baby girl. We are so excited to return home and be surrounded by family and friends at such a special time.”