Reproductive Genocide and Immigration Injustice: The Case of Lama Zaqout from Gaza

Reproductive Genocide and Immigration Injustice: The Case of Lama Zaqout from Gaza

 

Nelly Bassily 

 

Lama Zaqout should be in the nesting part of her pregnancy. Nesting is that overwhelming desire to get one’s home ready for a new baby. Instead, just a few days away from her scheduled cesarean section on February 14th, 2024, Lama has no home and no place to give birth safely. She lives in a refugee tent in Rafah, anxiously holding onto life as Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continue their genocidal massacre against Palestinians in Gaza. Preparing for her second child should be a joy. Instead, Lama’s pregnancy has turned into a battle for survival under constant bombardment in the most densely populated place on the planet. Childbirth and reproductive justice in Gaza are literally under siege.

Lama’s sister-in-law, Rasha Zaqout, is also nervous, fearing for the safety of her family daily. Trying every possible avenue to get Lama and seven other family members to safety has felt impossible. As a Canadian citizen, Rasha’s desperate and urgent pleas to the federal government to get her family out of Gaza have thus far been met with indifference. Since January 9th, like many other Canadians with family members in Gaza, Rasha has applied for the temporary resident visa programme (TRV) set up for Gazans – a highly restrictive and discriminatory application process. As the Montreal chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement has outlined: “Palestinians are expected to navigate the invasive and confusing visa application process while their homes are being bombed.” 

Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada launched the application process over a month ago, capping the numbers to 1000 applications. Palestinian applicants have to have an “anchor” relative in Canada to guarantee financial suppor​​t, fees are required to obtain the temporary visa, and no timeline is provided for application turnaround. Indeed, no Gazans have arrived on Canadian soil through this programme yet. This is by design.

By comparison, the Canadian federal government has issued 936,293 temporary emergency visas since March 2022 for Ukrainians fleeing war. For Ukranians, there are no limits imposed on the number of applications, there is no requirement to have a Canadian citizen or permanent resident family connection, no fees are required to apply for the visa and a clear 14-day turnaround time is guaranteed. As of November 28th, 2023, 210,178 Ukrainians actually arrived in Canada. 

What is the excuse for this blatant discrimination and discrepancy between the Palestinian and Ukrainian visa programmes? Many have pointed to anti-Palestinian racism and Canada’s unwavering support to Israel‘s genocidal war crimes, apartheid and genocide. According to a Human Rights Watch report, over the last 10 years, Canada has sent more than  $140 million in military goods to Israel, including military aerospace components as well as bombs, missiles, explosives and associated parts. In just the first 3 months of Israel’s war in Gaza, Canada approved a whopping $28.5 million in military exports to Israel. Most recently, Canadian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mélanie Joly, testified in a Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee Meeting that there were “no weapons sent [to Israel] under my watch in recent years, and none since October 7.”  

Further, under Minister Joly’s portfolio is Canada’s supposed feminist foreign policy. Canada boasts on every possible platform that it has a Prime Minister and a government that are “proud to proclaim themselves as feminists.” Indeed Canada’s Feminist International Assistance Policy is centered on “gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls” as its core tenant which includes sexual and reproductive rights. Evidently, sexual and reproductive rights for all except for Gazan women and girls. 

According to the Palestinian Feminist Collective, what is happening in Gaza is reproductive genocide. “Reproductive genocide includes mass incarceration; psychological warfare; collective punishment; ethnic cleansing; gendered and sexual violence by an occupying state or force; and forced conditions of unlivability. It also includes imprisonment and bodily desecration (for the living and dead).”

UNLIVABILITY, that’s what Lama and her family and millions of other Palestinians have been facing. Displaced by Israeli bombardment four times over and now forced to live in a tent in Rafah, Lama and her family are trapped. As the date of Lama’s c-section inches closer, she is fearful and still has many unanswered questions: how will she access anesthesia for the scheduled c-section on February 14th, where and how will the delivery happen, how will postpartum care even be possible under bombardment, how will she care for and feed her newborn baby if she can’t breastfeed or access formula and clean water?

Still according to the Palestinian Feminist Collective, “As a result of the lack of food and water due to the blockade, birthing women [in Gaza] are deprived of the ability to properly clean after delivery and have resorted to mass hysterectomies [full removal of the uterus] because they are unable to control their postpartum bleeding. Starvation has made it impossible for mothers to produce milk or to nurse.”

Palestinians have literally been risking their lives, every second of every day as they are pushed into Rafah and bombed in the supposed “safe zone” in Gaza. And now, they are being told to leave Rafah. But, where are 1,9 million Palestinians supposed to go? 

As Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed, Canada is complicit in their killing and suffering by aiding and abetting the Zionist colonial entity with impunity.

While Rasha Zaqout turns to a mutual aid campaign to raise funds to cover the exorbitant costs associated with getting her family to safety, so many questions remain. When will Canadian authorities finally respond to Palestinian Canadian families desperate to get their families out of Gaza, which includes getting Lama and her family to safety? What will Canadian authorities do to address the clear discrimination and unfairness in the temporary resident visa programmes they set up? When will Canadian authorities impose an arms embargo on Israel? When will Canada finally be on the right side of history and support a permanent ceasefire, a lifting of the siege on Gaza, and an end to the brutal Israeli occupation of Palestine?

As concerned fellow humans, you can do the following gesture of solidarity to help change unfair immigration policies for Gazans: send this letter to pressure the Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Marc Miller, to remove the arbitrary 1000-person cap, facilitate the reunion of Palestinian-Canadian families and eliminate the discriminatory requirements of the visa application process.

 

UPDATE

Feb 22, 2024 update: After much advocacy and pressure on Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller, Lama Zaqout was allowed along with her son, her mother-in-law and three sisters-in-law to cross into Egypt. After a long journey, on Monday February 19th, Lama Zaqout gave birth via-c-section to a beautiful baby girl in Cairo, Egypt. However, Lama’s husband Nedal and her father Arafat were not allowed to cross with Lama and the rest of the family. Rasha Zaqout, Lama’s sister-in-law is asking folks to keep emailing and calling the Canadian immigration minister to ask him to immediately reunite the family and help Nedal and Arafat Zaqout to get to Cairo. Rasha says “Lama needs her husband and his babies need to see their dad. Stop treating Arab men as less than! The presence of the father and the grandparents will help raise the kids in a healthy balanced environment, and postpartum is when a mother needs her support system the most. Imagine how stressful it can be to not know whether or not he will make it and live with survivor’s guilt forever.” 

ABOUT

Nelly Bassily is a queer disability justice advocate and intersectional feminist, anti-racism and sexual rights activist, and media maker with over 15 years of experience in the nonprofit sector. Born in Tiotià’ke (so-called Montreal) to Egyptian parents with Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian roots, immigration, diaspora, and identity also inform her activism.

 

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