A pregnant New Zealand journalist stranded overseas due to COVID-19 border restrictions is urging the NZ government to find a way to help women like her.
"One of the reasons we went public is because my lawyer has actually represented 30 New Zealand women who have been this before and rejected by [NZ quarantine authorities]," Charlotte Bellis told the ABC from Kabul.
"He's had to go to court eight times to fight for them, and still there's no pathway for pregnant women to come home.
"If I don't meet this threshold, who does?"
Bellis, 35, is expecting her first child with her partner, freelance photographer Jim Huylebroek, a Belgium native who has lived in Afghanistan for two years.
She was based in Doha, Qatar, and was working for state-owned broadcaster Al Jazeera. However, after learning she was pregnant, she resigned in November 2021 and left the country because pre-marital sex is a criminal offence in the conservative, Muslim-majority country.
"When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I had to get out as soon as possible," Bellis said.
"I actually went to see a gynaecologist in Doha and said, you know, 'Hypothetically, if I was pregnant, would you dob me in?' and she said, 'I wouldn't, but I can't treat you. And really, all I can say is you need to get out of here.'"
Bellis then flew to Belgium, trying to get residency there, but she said the length of the process would have left her in the country with an expired visa.
She said she could have hopped from country to country on tourist visas while she waited to have her baby, but it would have meant spending money on hotels without support or health care, while she fought to return to New Zealand.
New Zealand was previously supposed to reopen for quarantine-free travel in mid-January. However, due to the spread of the Omicron variant, the government postponed that until at least late February.
In the end, Bellis and her partner returned to Afghanistan because they had a visa, felt welcome and from there could wage her battle to return to her home.
She said they had a house in Afghanistan so after, "evaluating all of our options", they returned to Kabul.
"[NZ authorities] said we didn't meet the medical threshold, hadn't proven we couldn't get equivalent care in Afghanistan," Bellis said.
New Zealand's COVID-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said the government had signalled "there will be changes at the border and [the government] will be announcing these soon".
"The emergency allocation criteria cater for a wide range of scenarios which can include specifically for an expectant mother or bringing their partner home to support them," he said.
"This includes for medical treatment if a mother is overseas and cannot get the required treatment where they are."
Maternity care in Afghanistan 'on life support'
Afghanistan is enduring a humanitarian crisis in the wake of the Taliban returning to power last August.
Millions of Afghans are facing famine amid an economic crisis, and hospitals are struggling to adequately treat infants suffering from acute malnutrition.
The UN said in September that Afghanistan's health system was "teetering on the brink of collapse" and estimated there would be 51,000 additional maternal deaths before 2025 due to the crisis.
Bellis said it was "staggering" that NZ officials wanted her to prove that maternal care in Afghanistan was inadequate.
"Maternity care here is really on life support and incredibly dangerous," she said.
"I don't know why pregnancy doesn't fit the 'time-critical' medical treatment" [category] required by NZ authorities, she added.
Bellis said she had received three COVID-19 vaccinations and was ready to isolate upon returning to New Zealand.
She first wrote about her difficulties in a column published in The New Zealand Herald on Saturday.
Mr Hipkins said exemptions could be made for citizens in "special circumstances" like Bellis, but said those granted an exemption had to be able to travel to NZ within 14 days.
He said Bellis did not intend to travel until the end of February.
He encouraged her to "take seriously" the offer to apply for an exemption in another emergency category.
"I also understand she was offered New Zealand consular assistance twice since she returned to Afghanistan in early December but has not responded. Again, I encourage her to take up any offers of assistance," Mr Hipkins said.
But Bellis said there had been "radio silence" from NZ authorities in Kabul.
A generic email from the government said Bellis was able to apply for a travel exemption through a different category — that there was a serious risk to her safety.
"Why are we changing clauses and jumping through hoops?" she asked.
Bellis said she had set herself a deadline for leaving Afghanistan — once she was 30 weeks pregnant — to protect her health and that of her baby's.
At that time, she will still have more than a month left on her Belgian visa, allowing her to re-enter the country if she fails to get back to New Zealand by then.
Bellis said New Zealand authorities had largely done a "fantastic job" managing the pandemic and had saved a lot of lives, but she said their justification for locking her out remained unclear, particularly considering the country's high vaccination rate.
NZ website Stuff reported on Sunday that Bellis had been offered asylum by an unnamed country.
ABC/AP
