The High Court Sittings in Mansa District in Luapula Province has sentenced a 27 year old woman to three years suspended sentence for Unlawful Abortion.
Before Ndola High Court Judge was Nancy Kunda a peasant farmer of Chabala Village in Chief Kasoma Lwela’s Chiefdom in Chembe District who was charged with Abortion contrary to section 152(1) of the penal code of the Laws of Zambia.
Facts before the court were that on May 4, 2018 Kunda being a mother of five children terminated her two month old pregnancy unlawfully using a cassava stick.
Kunda decided to abort the pregnancy after discovering that her youngest one year old daughter was becoming sickly which is traditionally believed in the region to have been caused by the pregnancy.
The Court heard that it was then that she inserted a cassava stick which contributed to the abortion after she was taken to Chembe Rural Health Centre where the cassava stick was removed from her cervix.
Kunda was thereby arrested by Police in Chembe and charged for the charged offence of abortion by pregnant woman.
In mitigation, Kunda through her legal Aid Lawyer pleaded with the court for leniency as she was the first offender who readily admitted the charge and that she was remorseful of her actions.
Passing her sentence, Judge Chembe said she took into consideration her mitigation and that she was a first offender who deserved some leniency but that the crime she committed cannot go unpunished.
She then sentenced Kunda with a three year suspended sentence with effect from the date of arrest.
ZANIS/ENDS