Introduction

Justice is often described as blind, but for Violet Zulu, a 24-year-old domestic worker from Lusaka, it was also prohibitively expensive.

In January 2024, Violet 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 the Center for Reproductive Rights and WLSA Zambia are challenging that conviction in the High Court of Zambia.

Violet’s story

Violet’s story

Violet’s story unravels the dangerous gap between Zambia’s laws and the lived reality of its women. 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 not of ill intent, but of economic necessity.

Unjustly punished

Unjustly punished

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 January 13, 2024, she stood alone. There was no legal representative to guide her. No legal aid officer explained her rights. No one told her that Zambia’s own Termination of Pregnancy Act permits for abortion on “socio-economic grounds,” specifically when a mother’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 sentence.

This harsh sentence did more than just strip Violet of her liberty; it violently severed the bond between a single mother and her dependent sons, aged just 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.

This case exposes a lethal paradox in Zambia’s legal framework. 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. This economic exclusion often begins before conception, fueled by systemic failures and critical barriers to accessing Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) information and services.

Women like Violet, who cannot pay, fall into the trap of the Penal Code, which meets health crises with criminalization and eventually imprisonment.

Center’s appeal

Center’s appeal

The Center’s appeal filed before the High Court seeks to set aside Violet’s conviction on the grounds that the trial was a procedural failure from start to finish. 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 defenses, the court facilitated a violation of justice. And before she ever set foot in the court room, Violet was failed by the health care system, which continues to fail women who, by virtue of their economic status, are unable to afford the care they need.

If Violet’s conviction stands, it sets a chilling precedent: that a woman’s liberty in Zambia depends entirely on her economic status. The High Court’s decision will be crucial in determining whether the judiciary will continue to penalize the poor and marginalized for the failures of the public health system, or whether it will step in to protect the dignity and rights of the most vulnerable.

The Center continues to push for the full realization of women and girls’ rights in Zambia and urge the government to fulfill its duty by guaranteeing them unrestricted access to comprehensive reproductive health services.