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Pregnant New Zealand Journalist Who Had Turned To Taliban For Help Granted Re-Entry After Her Story Garners Attention

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Charlotte Bellis, a journalist, who had to seek help from the Taliban as she was not allowed to enter New Zealand for its strict COVID border rules, will now be returning home after being offered a place in the country’s quarantine system.

Bellis’s situation became worldwide popular after she said she was forced to turn to Afghanistan’s Taliban for refuge after being locked out of New Zealand due to its strict COVID border policies.

New Zealand’s deputy prime minister Grant Robertson in a press conference said that the government department in charge of the system that ensures people do not have COVID-19 before they enter the country had now offered her a place, as well as flight arrangements. He also shunned the speculations that she was being given preferential after her story became popular resulting in embarrassment for the New Zealand government.
Robertson in a press conference said, “What it sends is a message that the staff of (the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment) who have to deal with the emergency application are dealing with very difficult and challenging cases on a daily basis. They always try to make contact with people and try to make arrangements that work.”

Bellis in her column for New Zealand Herald wrote said that the government had rejected her application to return home to give birth. She compared it with her experience with the Taliban. After discovering that she was pregnant with her partner, a Belgian photojournalist, she shifted to Belgium. However, the time on her visa was running out as she was not a resident there. Afghanistan was the only place she and her partner had visas for, as they had been in Afghanistan last year covering the withdrawal of US troops.

She contacted a senior Taliban member, to ask if she would be welcome in Afghanistan as an unmarried pregnant woman.

“You can come and you won’t have a problem. Just tell people you’re married and if it escalates, call us,” Ms Bellis quoted the unnamed officials as saying in response to her request.

“When the Taliban offers you – a pregnant, unmarried woman – safe haven, you know your situation is messed up,” she wrote.

Bellis gained international attention in 2021 for questioning Taliban leaders about their treatment of women and girls.

Wellington is recently allowing allows citizens and permanent residents to enter but only after completing 10 days of mandatory quarantine in an isolation centre. However, the quarantine centres are fully booked and only many New Zealanders wishing to return have effectively been shut out of their country for about two years now.

After Bellis’ letter, New Zealand authorities were called to adjust the emergency quarantine allocation criteria to specifically cater for pregnant women.

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