NZ allows pregnant journo to leave Afghanistan

A New Zealand journalist who is pregnant and stranded in Afghanistan is finally allowed to return to her home.

Charlotte Bellis when she was a journalist the Al Jazeera network in Afghanistan. Picture: Instagram

A New Zealand journalist who is pregnant and stranded in Afghanistan is finally allowed to return to her home, Deputy Prime Minister Grant Robertson says.

Charlotte Bellis was told she had been granted a place in New Zealand’s strict quarantine system, known as Managed Isolation and Quarantine, Mr Robertson said on Tuesday.

“There is a place in MIQ for Miss Bellis and I urge her to take it up,” Mr Robertson said.

Bellis had been working for Al Jazeera in Afghanistan, but said she did not realise she was pregnant until she was at the media company’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

It is illegal to be pregnant and unmarried in Qatar, so Bellis kept her pregnancy secret as she prepared to return to New Zealand.

Upon being told she did not qualify for an exemption under New Zealand’s strict Covid-19 border controls, Bellis said she called senior Taliban contacts and was told she could give birth there.

“We’re happy for you, you can come and you won’t have a problem,” Bellis said in an interview about what the Taliban had told her.

They also said, “Don’t worry. Everything will be fine,” she told the New Zealand Herald “In my time of need, the New Zealand government said you’re not welcome here.

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

Bellis, who once questioned the Taliban about what they would do to ensure the rights of women and girls, said it was “brutally ironic” she was now asking the same question of her own government. She went public with her situation and engaged lawyers.

Mr Robertson refused to comment on dozens of other pregnant women who had been turned down for MIQ.

“Really difficult decisions (had to be made on the Covid-19 pandemic) on a daily basis,” he said.