LUSAKA, Zambia (AP) – She says she’s been let down at every turn. By a partner who abandoned her when she was pregnant. By a health service that refused her a legal abortion. And by a justice system that sent her to a maximum security prison for illegally terminating her pregnancy on her own.
Violet Zulu, a cleaner in Zambia who earns $40 a month, was sentenced to seven years in prison in 2024 after appearing in court without understanding the consequences of her actions. She did not see her two children or other family members for nearly two years.
After word of her case reached international rights groups who helped her file an appeal, Zulu was released last month. Activists say she represents the many women in Africa who make desperate decisions when faced with barriers to legal abortion services.
Her story has drawn little sympathy in her southern African nation, where parts of society frown on abortion. Her mother said she agreed with her daughter’s prison sentence, but said it should have been shorter.
Zulu spoke to The Associated Press as he rebuilds his life at the age of 26.
Back from nursing
She said she first tried to access legal abortion services at a public clinic, which was supposed to offer advice or services, but was turned 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 sons and sometimes had to beg for food from relatives.
She said her decision to drink a herbal concoction she prepared herself, one known to terminate pregnancy, was made 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 circumstances at home forced me to do it,” Zulu said in the interview at the two-room rented house without running water that she shares with her children and parents.
“I was scared (when I took the mixture), but I really didn’t care what was going to happen to me,” she added.
In her court testimony, she explained what happened next: She flushed the fetus down a toilet, put it in a sack and threw it into a nearby stream. She said she told a friend, but word got out and neighbors reported her to the police.
Zulu, who dropped out of school in the eighth grade, was never offered free legal counsel despite the right to request it. She represented herself in court and pleaded guilty to the crime of procuring her own abortion. She said she didn’t understand the legality of abortion and thought she would get a warning.
A system that has failed
“This is a system that failed Violet,” said Rosemary Kirui, legal counsel for Africa for the abortion rights group Center for Reproductive Rights, which campaigned for Zulu’s release and helped her appeal. “It’s not that she didn’t try. It’s that she didn’t afford the services, but she should be able to access them as a Zambian citizen.”
Zulu should have been eligible for a free abortion under a provision that allows Zambian doctors to consider risks to the well-being of her existing children, said Sharon Williams, country director for the advocacy group Women and Law in Southern Africa.
But Zulu was unaware of this, largely because of the secrecy, stigma and shame surrounding abortion, which is not promoted by Zambia’s public health system.
Zambia’s Ministry of Health did not respond to inquiries about her case.
Part of the problem, Williams said, is that Zambia has legalized abortion while 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 a lack of information make it difficult to access legal procedures, 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 that judgment, we’re 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 these, with about 75 percent of all abortions in Africa considered unsafe, according to the World Health Organization.
The health rights organization Guttmacher Institute estimated in a 2019 report that more than 6 million unsafe abortions took place a year in sub-Saharan Africa. It noted that Zambia’s abortion law “tended to be a ‘paper law’ rather than one that ensured 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 13 weeks of pregnancy and for several reasons before 21 weeks.
But studies estimate that only 7 percent of public health facilities there offer abortion services.
In 2023, the case of a 14-year-old who was denied an abortion by workers in South Africa three times for reasons that were not valid prompted a national reality check. After an emergency court, a judge ordered that the girl be allowed to have an abortion, which was carried out on the last eligible day under the law.
At the time, a representative of the social justice group representing the girl said South Africa’s abortion laws were undermined by the “abuse of medical knowledge by health professionals” in an attempt to prevent abortions.
In Zambia, Zulu said he still feels bad for what he did, but now has to look after his sons. She was looking for work again, she said.
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Imray reported from Cape Town, South Africa.
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