When the World Closed Its Doors: The COVID-19 Tragedy and the Future of Borders, by Edward Alden and Laurie Trautman, Oxford University Press, 344 pages, $29.99
In late 2021, Charlotte Bellis, an unmarried journalist from New Zealand, found herself pregnant while working in Qatar, a country where that status carries the risk of jail time or deportation. A doctor advised her to get married or get out of the country. But New Zealand, which at that point still was taking drastic measures to limit the spread of COVID-19, allowed its citizens to come home only if they secured lottery-allocated spots in a government-run quarantine program. Bellis applied but was unsuccessful. Desperate, she turned to the Taliban.
The Islamic fundamentalist group said yes. Bellis made her way to Afghanistan, where she had worked and where her boyfriend was based. "When the Taliban offers you—a pregnant, unmarried woman—safe haven, you know your situation is messed up," she wrote in The New Zealand Herald in January 2022.
