GIRL rights organisation Shamwari yeMwanasikana (SYS) has welcomed a High Court ruling which allows pregnant children and marital rape victims to enjoy the right to abort.
The ruling followed a lawsuit against the Health and Child Care ministry, Parliament and the Attorney-General instituted by the Women and Law in Southern Africa and Talent Forget represented by Tendai Biti challenging some sections of the Termination of the Pregnancy Act.
On November 22, Justice Maxwell Takuva, ruled that section 2(1) of the Act is unconstitutional and invalid.
He said laws that denied access to legal abortion for children below the age of 18 and married women who were victims of marital rape were unconstitutional.
SYS director Ekenia Chifamba told NewsDay that the ruling, which gives the green light to girls below 18, who are victims of sexual abuse to access safe abortion services, is a welcome move.
“It is a great move and has been long overdue. Girls below the age of 18 with previous laws were tied for life to perpetrators through the child born often resulting in child marriages,” she said.
“With this ruling, girls are now given a choice to seek recourse without any form of attachment to the perpetrator.”
Chifamba said subjecting children to pregnancy was inhumane and torture as the child would be a constant reminder of the heinous act the girl was exposed to.
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“In most cases, girls had to put up with health complications associated with child bearing at a very young age such as obstetric fistula, among others,” she said.
“In some instances, loss of life occurred. In the same view, we call for the reform of the Act not only to allow abused children, but all girls under the age of 18 to have a choice on safe abortion regardless of circumstances under which the baby was conceived.”
The country has strict abortion laws, with the Termination of Pregnancy Act only permitting abortion in three situations, which include when the continuation of the pregnancy endangers the life of the woman concerned; where there is a serious risk that the child to be born will suffer from a permanent physical or mental defect or where the child was conceived through rape other than rape within a marriage.
