Namibia | This is the moment Paula and Maya finally arrived home
Paula and Maya arrive at the Hosea Kutako International Airport in Windhoek
After being blocked by homophobic state policies, a gay couple’s surrogate baby girls have finally arrived home in Namibia.
On Friday evening, Paula and Maya, their Mexican father Guillermo Delgado, their Namibian father Phillip Lühl and two-year-old brother, Yona, flew into Windhoek from South Africa.
A small group gathered at the Hosea Kutako International Airport to meet the girls on their arrival. They sang and chanted “Paula and Maya home” while holding up rainbow flags and placards welcoming the twins.
The babies were wheeled into the arrivals lounge to much excitement from their supporters. A rainbow flag was draped over their prams as they were taken through the airport.
The twins were born on 13 March in Durban, South Africa through surrogacy. Lühl and Delgado are registered as their legal parents in South Africa.
For more than two months, the Namibian government refused to accept the girls as Namibian or issue them with travel documents to enter Namibia, where their parents live. The government has also demanded proof that the babies are genetically related to Lühl.
Following legal action, embarrassing international headlines and a heartbreaking campaign to get the girls home, they were finally issued travel documents by the Namibian High Commission in Pretoria, but not an acknowledgement of their citizenship (the girls remain stateless).
“It’s really quite sad that it takes so much emotional and financial [effort] and disruptions to our lives in order to get a simple bureaucratic decision taken that allows us to be together as a family,” Lühl told MambaOnline last week.
Photos: OUT and Proud Namibia
The family are still embroiled in a separate legal bid to force the Namibian government – which does not recognise same-sex marriages – to give Delgado and Yona permanent residence.
After being blocked by homophobic state policies, a gay couple’s surrogate baby girls have finally arrived home in Namibia to meet the rest of their family. Read more at https://t.co/YMyNNdOsfj
Video courtesy of OUT and Proud Namibia#loveislove #allfamilies pic.twitter.com/QQiQOc3V66
— Mambaonline (@Mambaonline) May 23, 2021
Paula and Maya are home! After months of delays, a gay couple’s surrogate baby girls have finally arrived home in Namibia to meet the rest of their family. Read more at https://t.co/YMyNNdOsfj
Video courtesy of OUT and Proud Namibia pic.twitter.com/Jd6K5qTT2U
— Mambaonline (@Mambaonline) May 23, 2021
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