Pregnant Foreign Students

[Jibby123]

Can anyone tell me why foreign students who get pregnant are being treated like criminals within the immigration.

The immigration system allows for the withdrawal of visa from any student who misses 10 classes after having a baby. This is scandalous.

Are foreign mothers inferior to other mothers or does pregnancy affect them in a different way?

Some argue that a visa is given for studies and not to have babies but we know that pregnancies do not necessarily as planned especially when students are allowed to bring their spouses along with them as dependants.

Just because you are a foreign student is not a ban on sex.

This situation puts a lot of pressure on pregnant foreign students and is causing them to go through harrowing experiences while pregnant as they worry about their visa status and are forced to attend studies even when they are not fit to. The pregnancy alone is hard enough.

Pregnancy is not a disease, not a crime and certainly not an immigration offence.

WE need to raise this issue to the government so that they can treat pregnant foreign students in a more humane manner.

flatbread am HRTpayer.

You say pregnancy is a choice but illness and bereavement are clearly not. So why can't pregnancy be treated differently or is getting pregnant such a bad thing?

Ah, swanker, what was about? You don't lime when people question your contribution, but you have no problem making blanket statements about other foreign student contributions.

Do you know, by any chance, how much a typical London Business School foreign student spends on tuition and living a year? Over sixty grand a year. That is money they are contributing to our economy.

Jericho, you can use the word glutton in many contexts. As a Noun or a metaphor. No word in the dictionary is blacklisted except they are used in the wrong context. I can't remember reading anywhere that the word isn't to be used. I read the papers and novels and even listen on tv and radio and this word is still used. Context please, context. Don't make a mountain out of a mole hill. This discussion is about foreign pregnant students.

And money that they will take to the US or Australia instead, if our government isn't careful.

honey you are right. Anyway, my iPad keyboard is playing up. Too many sticky fingers on the screen, i suspect

So off to bed. Night all

jibby some really good reasoned arguments from you. Think you should move this to aibu

A foreign student pays over £60000 a year to study at the London Business School, gets pregnant and is told to leave. She did not steal, kill or defraud. She simply got pregnant. What kind of society is that?

Flatbread, I am new to this forum, What is AIBU and how do I get there?

Just not sure why is my contribution to the economy up for question, when it is not pertinent to the thread as I am neither pg nor a student? (nor for that matter from outside UK)

I appreciate purchasing an MBA represents a hefty input to the economy, but I find it a little far-fetched to presume any MBA students would be getting pg whilst studying.

Obviously a woman having a baby will miss some classes. Any woman. It doesn't mean you can't or won't complete your degree. It makes no sense from any angle to force one woman to leave the country and abandon (at least that year, possibly for good) her course, but allow a local woman to return and finish on time.

If the university can accomodate pregnant students, and they can complete their studies despite missing more than 10 classes, why revoke the student visa? I agree with the OP, that's madness.

The visa rules are unnecessarily harsh. Frankly a horrendous flu could knock you out for more than 10 classes. Clearly some sort of medical exceptions should be allowed.

Am I being unreasonable (aibu) thread or chat. These get the most traffic, and probably more varied, thoughtful responses

Just copy your original post to one of those threads or ask mumsnet headquarter to transfer this there.

'A foreign student pays over £60000 a year to study at the London Business School, gets pregnant and is told to leave.'

But you've already been told that is not how it works! She'd have to miss her 10 meetings.

If you want to say you think some universities aren't good at making it possible for pregnant students to attend meetings, or don't accommodate them well, fair enough, I could believe that. But claiming pregnant students are simply kicked out and given no chance to see if they can manage both their pregnancy and their course is both twisting the original argument, and a bit rude to the large numbers of women who do manage to have babies and meet the terms of their study visas.

Ummm... doesn't AIBU usually make things worse??? But yeah, 'tis a better location than pregnancy for this discussion.

EDR - but it's not 10 classes. It's 10 nominated meetings.So her supervisor could ok her to miss 10 classes but require she make meetings at ten set dates, if that makes sense?

Swanker, I imagine very few international students would deliberately get pregnant before finishing their studies - far too much riding on the massive investment that they have made.

But life doesn't always go to plan, does it? Accidents do happen, and for many people, abortion isn't an option. In this day and age, it seems a little harsh to say that foreign women should just suck up the consequences of this.

If they want to pack in their studies when the baby is born, then of course they should go home. But if they want to make some tough sacrifices in order to finish that MBA in which they have invested so much, should that really be impossible because they have to miss a couple of weeks' worth of classes? Really?

I'm sure there are universities that act very badly and get this all wrong, btw - not saying that the system always works perfectly. But I do know people for whom is has worked well and it's simply not true that all overseas students who get pregnant have their visas revoked - loads go on to have a perfectly normal pregnancy and complete their courses.

Jericho, some institutions do define contacts as classes, and this is in keeping with the spirit of the government guidance. Meetings with a supervisor would typically be counted for research students, but for those on taught courses, ten classes would be a reasonable interpretation of the law.

The reason I started this thread is to raise the issue that the government should recognise these circumstances in the immigration law so that expectant mothers do not have to deal with the anxiety of what may happen to them if they get pregnant on top of dealing with the pregnancy.

For now, the rules are so vague and many pregnant foreign students worry endlessly about what might happen to their visas after child birth.

Of course a person who cannot continue their studies should go home but to expect a student to go home to reapply for visa to re-enter simply because they had a baby is just wrong.

jibby, I think it's a perfectly valid argument. FWIW, I agree that the immigration rules need looking at.

honey - but would that not fall under what I said before about some universities being less good than others at accommodating pregnant students?
I'm sure lots can be doen to make women with children and pregnant women more welcome in universities, but I don't see how it's a xenophobia issue.

Agreed Jibby

Of course a student visa is issued for the purpose of allowing someone to study, and that all students who get pregnant will have to overcome difficulties, but the effect on foreign national students is disproportionately harsh. I would hazard that most people who invest tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds studying do not intend to cause themselves difficulties, but some people do get pregnant by accident.

Particular problems I see are the fact that foreign national students are not able to switch to a part time course, which is an option for pregnant British women.

There is also the right of the baby and father to bond- if the father is also a foreign national- even if he and the mother are married, if he has less than 12 months to the end of his course he would not be permitted to be joined by the mother and baby as dependants. He would also have to make the choice between giving up his studies and his relationship with partner and child.

Not really, because they can't change their definition of "expected contacts" at will - they risk losing their sponsor license if they do.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all in favour of institutions being flexible and defining the expected contacts as loosely as reasonably possible. But the fact is, some universities are quite gung ho about putting their own slant on the guidance, while others are terrified that they will fail an audit by the ukba and end up being paranoid overly cautious as a result.

Most UK HE institutions are so heavily dependent on international student income that they simply cannot contemplate the risk of losing their licence.

Thistledew, it seems the country simply treats foreign students as cash cows.

For one, a child born to foreign parents in the UK can no longer claim UK nationality. What is the government afraid of?

In order to reduce net immigration, foreign students are being disproportionately targeted and knowing what pregnancy could be like, I really feel for foreign students who get pregnant.

It is unnecessary pressure for an expectant mother whatever their nationality especially when men who inpregnate women don't have to suffer the same consequences.

Are we saying foreign male students are allowed to be rampant while their female have to remain celibate considering they can come over with their dependent spouses.

I think there should be a sign at Heathrow which says "No Sex Allowed for Females on Student Visa. Failure to Comply and You Get Pregnant Will Result in the Withdrawal of Your Visa"

That would be an excellent welcome or maybe a deterrent if this is part of the conditions when they apply for visas.

Just to elaborate a little further, what I mean is that some institutions have taken the view that the letter of the law is stupid, and that ultimately, common sense will be allowed to prevail, whereas others take the view that the law is the law no matter how stupid, and that institutions ignore this at their own risk.

I would like to think that those in the first camp have got it right, but only time will tell. Applying common sense is not a particular strength in the ukba.