Charlotte Bellis
This is so funny I can’t even think of the right joke.
A pregnant New Zealand journalist says she has had to turn to the Taliban for help after being prevented from returning to her home country due to quarantine rules.
In a column published in the New Zealand Herald on Saturday, Charlotte Bellis said it was “brutally ironic” that she had once questioned the Taliban about their treatment of women and she was now asking the same questions of her own government.
“When the Taliban offers you – a pregnant, unmarried woman – safe haven, you know your situation is messed up,” Bellis wrote in her column.
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In her column on Saturday, Bellis said she returned to Qatar in September and discovered she was pregnant with her partner, freelance photographer Jim Huylebroek, a contributor to The New York Times.
She described the pregnancy as a “miracle” after earlier being told by doctors she couldn’t have children. She is due to give birth to a girl in May.
She said she resigned from Al Jazeera in November and the couple moved to Huylebroek’s native Belgium. But she could not stay long, she said, because she was not a resident. She said the only other place the couple had visas to live was Afghanistan.
Bellis said she had spoken to senior Taliban contacts who told her she would be fine if she returned to Afghanistan.
She said they told her: “Just tell people you’re married and if it escalates, call us. Don’t worry.”
She said she had sent 59 documents to New Zealand authorities in Afghanistan but they rejected her application for an emergency return.
Jacinda Ardern is supposed to be the greatest feminist icon of the era, while the Taliban are the most evil misogynists the world has ever known. But here you have what is objectively the most helpless type of adult human – a pregnant woman – being denied aid by Feminist Prime and instead seeking help from the supposed most evil woman-haters.
The villains are just like “hey – no problem, babe. We got you.”