Woman who had baby on Auckland flight 'ruins Samoa's good name'

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When the incident of the Samoan mother on the Pacific Blue flight hit the shores of the fairly peaceful Samoa, what swept through the nation was a mixture of shock, sheer curiosity and embarrassment.

News people in Samoa called the incident an 'international embarrassment,' saying the incident had ruined the good name of Samoa.

The editor of the Samoa Observer, Keni Ramese-Lesa, wrote a day after the incident: "This international embarrassment would never have happened if the systems we have in place were working. For instance, aren't people like this woman required to undergo a full medical check-up before being given the okay to be part of such schemes?"

Discussion forums on the Newsline Samoa newspaper have been overwhelmed by people outraged at the incident, because it gives Samoa a bad name.

"How embarrassing!!! How could she? What was she thinking? She thought she would get away with it?" Atinae wrote on Samoalivenews.com.

Coffee shops and the women's committee buzzed with exaggerated stories of the incident, trying to figure out where the woman comes from, her family and any other gossip worthy details.

The CEO of the Ministry of Health, Tupuimatagi Palanitina Toelupe, has already reaffirmed that travelling at seven months term is not a good idea.

Those who processed the woman's papers are pointing fingers, and some just not talking, as they try to figure out exactly who or where they went wrong.

The prime minister's department has yet to issue a statement.

The New Zealand Immigration office in Samoa has remained behind closed doors.

What is perhaps interesting about all of this is that the locals are not shocked the woman left her baby in a rubbish bin, but rather that she did it outside of Samoa, and on a plane.

A comment by a friend put this into perspective.

The friend, a 24-year-old waitress, says: "I can't believe she had the guts to do it outside of Samoa, really."

Sadly, the incident is one that is repeated often in Samoa.

In my career as a news reporter I have reported on numerous cases of newborn babies being abandoned at birth.

The common theme amongst the cases are the disregard for whether the baby lived or not.

Among the cases are two of newborns in plastic bags, one newborn wrapped in a blanket in the bush and another thrown in a river and left for dead.

In most of the cases the babies end up dying before they were found.

So when the Samoan woman left her baby aboard the rubbish bin of the Pacific Blue flight and survived, I personally breathed easy.

The common theme amongst those who have freely expressed opinions in Samoa about this case is finding someone to blame and berating the woman for her 'stupidity' and 'ignorance.'

What could have been a joyful incident on board the Pacific Blue flight from Samoa turned into a very sad incident.

This incident occurs often enough to warrant a shift in the mind frame of Samoan society.

I am neither an anthropologist nor a sociologist, but I know the pressures that face the Samoan woman today.

For an advanced society, bearing a fatherless child is still viewed as a 'shame' and the expectations imposed on a Samoan tamaitai (woman) to adhere to matrimony before bearing a child is not only unfair but unrealistic.

So in the process of trying to defend the pride of their families, those who do abandon their babies do the opposite by 'shaming' their families with such blatant disregard for human life.

The actions of this one Samoa woman suggest that something is certainly amiss in Paradise.