Two Mbare women were lucky to escape effective jail terms after they were convicted of aiding a botched pregnancy termination which led to the death of Phyllis Musonza last year.
Lucy Moses (24) and Liona Musonza (22) were charged with culpable homicide when they appeared before regional magistrate Never Katiyo.
The court heard Phyllis was two months pregnant when in October last year she was referred to Moses by her aunt Liona who wanted to assist her in an illegal termination.
However, it was the manner in which the said pregnancy was terminated which led to Phyllis’s death, leaving Jo’burg-Lines, Mbare residents shocked. Prosecutor Editor Mavuto said on the day in question, Moses took a stick and inserted it in Phyllis’s private parts and started poking inside in a bid to abort the pregnancy. She was paid $20 following the primitive abortion attempt.
An hour after the “operation” Phyllis started bleeding profusely and upon being referred to hospital she succumbed to internal injuries and a post mortem result indicated she had died of respiratory failure and haemorrhage in her lungs due to the botched abortion. Before passing sentence Katiyo described the action by the two women as a foolish resolution.
“The whole transaction depicts people who gathered to carry out a foolish resolution only relevant in the jungles of the Amazon which are out of touch with civilisation. The apparatus used to commit the offence shows how primitive the situation was,” said Katiyo.
The two were slapped with a 48-month prison terms and 30 months were suspended on condition they do not commit a similar offence. The remaining 18 months were suspended on condition Moses and Musonza performed 630 hours of community service at Mbare Clinic and Gwinyai Primary School respectively.
