LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) – She says she was hit at every turn. From a partner who abandoned her when she was pregnant. From a health service that denied her a legal abortion. And from a justice system that sent her to a maximum security prison for illegally terminating the pregnancy on her own.
Violet Zulu, a house cleaner in Zambia who earns $40 a month, has been sentenced to seven years in prison in 2024 after representing herself in court with little understanding of the consequences of her actions. She has not seen her two children or other family members for almost two years.
After word of her case reached international rights groups who helped her file an appeal, Zulu was released last month. Activists say it represents many women in Africa who make desperate decisions when faced with barriers to legal abortion services.
Her story has attracted little sympathy in her nation in southern Africa, where parts of society view abortion harshly. Her own mother said she agreed with her daughter’s prison sentence, but said it should have been shorter.
Zulu spoke to The Associated Press as she put her life back together at the age of 26.
Get away from care
She said she first tried to access legal abortion services at a public clinic, which was supposed to give her advice or services but turned her away. She then tried a private pharmacy, which charged 800 Zambian kwacha ($43) for abortion drugs, a month’s salary for her.
She was already struggling to feed her two young children, and sometimes had to beg food from relatives.
She said that her decision to drink a mixture of herbs that she prepared herself, one known to terminate pregnancy, was taken out of desperation. She couldn’t bear for her boys to have even less food if she had another child.
“I never wanted to abort my pregnancy, but it is the circumstances at home that forced me to do it,” said Zulu in the interview in the rented two-room house without running water that she shares with her children and her parents.
“I was scared (when I took the concoction), but I didn’t really care what would happen to me,” she added.
In her testimony in court, she explained what happened next: She flushed the fetus into a toilet, put it in a sack and dropped it in a nearby stream. She said she trusted a friend, but word got out and the neighbors reported her to the police.
Zulu, who left school in the eighth grade, was never offered free legal advice despite the right to ask for it. She represented herself in court and pleaded guilty to the crime of procuring her own abortion. She said she did not understand the legality of abortion and thought she would receive a warning.
A system that failed
“This is a system that failed Violet,” said Rosemary Kirui, legal adviser for Africa for the abortion rights group Center for Reproductive Rights, which campaigned for Zulu’s release and helped with her appeal. “It’s not that she didn’t try. It’s that she couldn’t afford the services, but she should be able to access them as a Zambian citizen.”
Zulu should have been eligible for free abortion under a provision that allows doctors in Zambia to consider risks to the well-being of her existing children, said Sharon Williams, country director for the advocacy group Women and Law in South Africa.
But the Zulu was not aware of this, mainly because of the secrecy, stigma and shame surrounding abortion, which is not advertised by the Zambian public health system.
Zambia’s health ministry did not respond to questions about her case.
Part of the problem, Williams said, is that Zambia has legalized abortion while also defining itself in its constitution as a strongly Christian country.
Abortions are still largely restricted in Africa, with few countries allowing them for reasons other than threats to the health of the mother or fetus. Even in countries like Zambia, religious beliefs, conservative values rooted in local cultures or lack of information make access to legal procedures difficult, according to health and rights groups.
Williams said Zulu’s case should lead to a national conversation about whether Zambian authorities should better educate communities about the legal right to abortion.
“I think now that we have this judgment, we are ready for the conversation,” she said.
Desperate women, unsafe abortions
Activists say desperate women turn to unsafe abortions. Africa and Latin America have the highest proportions of them, with about 75% of all abortions in Africa considered unsafe, according to the World Health Organization.
The Guttmacher Institute health rights organization estimated in a 2019 report that more than 6 million unsafe abortions occurred annually in sub-Saharan Africa. He noted that Zambia’s abortion law “was intended to be a ‘paper law’ rather than one that would ensure widespread access.”
In South Africa, which claims to have the most progressive laws on the continent, abortion has been legal for almost 30 years. It is allowed on request before the 13th week of pregnancy and for various reasons before the 21st week.
But studies estimate that only 7% of public health facilities there offer abortion services.
In 2023, the case of a 14-year-old boy who was denied an abortion by South African health workers three times for invalid reasons led to a national reality check. After an urgent court case, a judge ordered that the girl be allowed to have an abortion, which was done on the last eligible day by law.
At the time, a representative of the social justice group that represented the girl said that South Africa’s abortion laws were being undermined by the “abuse of medical knowledge by health care professionals” to try to prevent abortions.
In Zambia, Zulu said she still felt bad about what she did but now she has to provide for her children. She was looking for work again, she said.
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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.
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