In January 2024, Violet Zulu, a 24-year-old domestic worker from Lusaka, was sentenced to seven years in prison. Her crime? Terminating a pregnancy she could not afford to carry, in a health care system she could not afford to access. Now, human rights organizations led by WLSA Zambia and the US Center for Reproductive Rights are challenging that conviction in the High Court of Zambia.
Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) is a regional network operating in seven countries of southern Africa, namely Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. WLSA Zambia was established in 1989 by a group of academics, gender activists, and researchers in response to the many socio-legal challenges that women were facing in the region. WLSA Zambia focuses on, among other issues, social justice, gender equality and equity; and the law, both customary and statutory. In the continued effort to improve the socio-economic, political and legal advancement of women, WLSA works on issues relating to disability, the environment, education and health, poverty reduction through empowerment of women, all anchored on the law and respect for human rights.
Violet’s story
A survivor of child marriage, a single mother, and the sole breadwinner for her family, Violet and her two young sons were surviving on a domestic worker’s wage. Violet had been using contraception because she did not plan to have more children. But facing more urgent family financial needs, she was unable to renew it–the cost of preventing an unwanted pregnancy presented too great of a financial burden. As a result, she remained unprotected. Notably, she had previously attempted to access contraceptives at a health facility but was charged an amount she could not afford.
Eventually she fell pregnant and was abandoned by her partner. Violet attempted to do what the law allows: access safe medical care. However, the cost of a legal abortion at a health facility was roughly equivalent to her entire monthly income. Faced with an impossible choice, she was forced out of the formal sector. She resorted to a traditional herbal remedy (Muleza), a decision born of economic necessity.
The state’s response to Violet’s desperation was swift and punitive. She was detained at Ng’ombe Police Post for 19 days before even being charged. She was held postpartum without post-abortion care and without any psychosocial support, an explicit violation of constitutional limits on detention. When she finally appeared before the Magistrates Court on 13 January 2024, she stood alone. She had no legal representation or legal aid officer to explain her rights. No one told her that Zambia’s own Termination of Pregnancy Act permits for abortion on socio-economic grounds, specifically when a woman’s circumstances prevent her from caring for a child.
Violet pleaded guilty. The court accepted her plea without inquiry and handed down a seven-year prison sentence. This harsh sentence did more than just strip Violet of her liberty; it severed the bond between a single mother and her dependent sons, aged three and seven. Now effectively orphaned by the state, these children have been left to face a future of uncertainty, collateral damage in a legal system that punished their mother for her poverty. While the Termination of Pregnancy Act provides a ‘shield’ offering legal avenues for abortion, that shield is often only available to those with the ability to pay for doctor’s signatures and medical fees.
The appeal to set aside Violet’s conviction argues that the justice system failed to uphold Article 18 of the Constitution, which guarantees a fair trial for all Zambians. By allowing an unrepresented, uninformed woman to plead guilty to a complex charge without explaining her potential defences, the court facilitated a violation of justice. And before she ever set foot in the court room, Violet was failed by the healthcare system, which continues to fail women who, by virtue of their economic status, are unable to afford the care they need.
The development objective of WLSA-Zambia is to improve the legal status of women in southern Africa, through the following activities in 37 local areas of operations in the country:
� Developing the research skills of women law researchers in the network countries;
� Conducting research on gender issues in southern Africa, particularly those related to legal rights.
� Providing information on gender and the law and influencing policy and law reforms in each country;
� Networking and exchanging information between the seven countries;
� Conducting training seminars on research and producing materials in the seven countries;
� Exploring and developing new methodologies and new perspectives for the studies of gender and the law in the seven countries;
� Cooperating and liaising with other organisations in each country, in the region and internationally which are interested in issues related to women and law.
SOURCES: Women and Law in Southern Africa (WLSA) Zambia: About Us + PHOTO ; Justice denied: how poverty led a Zambian mother to jail for procuring an abortion, by Center for Reproductive Rights, 11 December 2025.
