"Are pregnant women returned to Morocco?"

Fàtima (Tétouan, 34 years old) approaches a group of women while touching her belly. She is six months pregnant. Until now she hadn't had many discomforts – "I was calm," she says as she looks at her belly – but since she arrived in Ceuta things have changed and she feels the baby every day. She threw herself into the sea, with the physical risks that this entails, to flee Morocco, where she does not want to return in any way. We communicate thanks to Jadira, a woman of Moroccan origin who has lived in Ceuta for many years.“Do you have family in Morocco?”

The answer, when Jadira translates the question for her, can be understood instantly even by someone who doesn't know Arabic: she raises her hand with her palm facing upwards and moves her wrist from side to side, indicating indifference. “I can’t count on family,” she says. Alone and with a child on the way, she doesn’t envision a future in the Alawite country. In Morocco, social and cultural stigma weigh heavily on single mothers. Human rights organizations have denounced the domestic violence these mothers suffer, which often ends with expulsion from the family home. In exile. Sexual relations outside of marriage are illegal according to the country's Penal Code, leaving women without family support and with little legal protection.

Fatima wishes for a better life, for herself and for her son, and initially wishes for it in the Peninsula, despite not mastering Spanish, where she hopes to be able to give birth. That's why she says it's worth waiting as long as it takes, even if it means sleeping one more night on the street – this Saturday will be the ninth – while waiting to be welcomed into a center. Now it is she who poses a question, aware that she has entered the State by avoiding the police.

Are pregnant women returned [to Morocco]?

Too much hope placed in an answer that is not clear to me. Spanish law excludes pregnant women from immediate or border return procedures. A priori, expulsion is prohibited if the pregnancy and the mother's health are at risk. And the public health system guarantees childbirth.

An intimate camp

This young Moroccan woman is not the only one wondering if she can be returned. It is a concern shared by the hundred or so women – some with children – and teenage girls with whom she has been living for a few days at the sports center in the peripheral neighborhood of La Reina. The neighbors have improvised a camp there to welcome them. “There is another pregnant woman there who is many weeks further along,” points out one of the volunteers. A court where just over a week ago basketball and football matches were played by the local children, has now been occupied by tents, sleeping bags, blankets, sleeping bags and some mattresses. In addition to tents, old sheets have been converted into awnings to provide a bit of shade. Some girls are resting there, others are talking quietly or combing their hair and doing their best to fix the makeup they were wearing, which the humidity has smudged. They do this with the few personal items they managed to save from the swim across. Items that today allow them to preserve a certain intimate routine. “All the women who found themselves alone in the street or in the mountains, half-hidden, we have welcomed them,” explains Abdelah, president of the neighbors' association. They have also decided to install an iron gate that secures the entrance, where shifts are taken to guard it. The space, self-managed by the residents, has the green light from the Ceuta government, which is the only plan B it has found in the face of overwhelmed public resources. The same has happened in the El Príncipe neighborhood. There are no official figures on how many women entered Ceuta and how many remain. These days, different organizations from the autonomous city have met with the Secretary of State for Equality to address the particular situation of women and girls and the need for them to be in safe spaces. “They have specific needs and are more vulnerable profiles,” they recall from the Federación Sur Acoge. In their migratory journey, not only does their foreign status come into play, but also gender-related factors that expose them to risks of sexual violence and physical or psychological aggression, which increase due to a lack of resources. Without economic resources

At midday the Red Cross arrives. They bring food, but above all hygiene products, diapers, and towels. Outside they have installed a portable toilet. It is "insufficient", denounces Abdelah, but he acknowledges that it is more than nothing. "I am calmer", says Meriem (Casablanca, 37 years old) fumbling with a Spanish that prevents Jadira from acting as a translator. She and her two young sons arrived at the sports center a little later than Fatima. In Morocco, she worked cleaning houses, but she didn't earn enough to live in a city, Casablanca, alone with two children – her husband abandoned her –: life has become more expensive in recent years. Casablanca is experiencing a boom in luxury real estate and major investments in infrastructure to prepare for the 2030 World Cup. Meriem has a pad in her hands. “Good thing they let us clean ourselves up a bit,” she says as she holds up the menstrual hygiene product. The women around her laugh, but she is not ashamed. They share this too.