5 Dec 2017

American Samoa to change tack on pregnant foreigners

4:50 pm on 5 December 2017

The American Samoa government has agreed that denying some pregnant Samoan women entry to the territory is a breach of their human rights and it has promised to alleviate the matter.

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Photo: 123RF

This issue was raised during last week's inter-Samoa talks with the revelation that this year two pregnant women arriving on the Lady Naomi from Samoa were stopped from entering the territory.

They were made to go back to Samoa on the return trip eight hours later.

American Samoa has a 20-year-old policy that forbids foreign women who are six, or more, months pregnant from entering the territory.

It was intended to stop them giving birth in American Samoa and the child qualifying for US national status.

The concerns were that the women were not allowed to disembark even though they had valid entry permits.