By Isaac Zulu
Media consultant Sally Towela Chiwama says society must not demonise women who procure abortions on face value without probing why people were resorting to arriving at such decisions.
“What I know is that when one procures an illegal abortion, the first contact place is the police station. But I also wish to state that some police officers, I am not saying all of them; some of them have been trained how to handle such cases so that members of the community do not demonise or criminalise those women,” Chiwama said in an interview with Daily Revelation. “And for me. I think there’s need to go beyond that story and take time to visit such a woman or female teenager who has procured an illegal or legal abortion, even to a point a point of visiting such a person at their home and find out what really happened and assure her that, as a journalist; you will not reveal her names or identity. It could be that she became pregnant out of incest or was just defiled or raped by an unknown person or an imbecile. So, you cannot demonise, stigmatise or criminalise such a woman from face value.”
Chiwala implored media practitioners to embrace advocacy journalism and report on sexual reproductive health rights in order to change the narrative about unsafe and safe abortions.
She bemoaned the trend by media houses to prioritise political stories in their publications and news bulletins, while relegating issues that have to do with human health.
She pointed out that without health citizens, which encompasses sexual reproductive health rights, the nation would become unproductive; stating that a country cannot develop is the nation is not health, saying in other countries issues of gender based violence and sexual reproductive health rights are given particular attention by media houses such that such news stories are given precedence.
“Imagine a 60-year old woman getting pregnant, by the way even those that are in that age group do have sex anyway; then she suffers ridicule in the community and resorts to illegal abortion and when she goes to the health facility her uterus is removed. Or a 15-year old girl gets pregnant and goes to some herbalist to induce an illegal abortion and ends up having her uterus removed. Don’t you think that that is front page material? That’s front page material! It should be a lead story in a publication,” she said.
Chiwama also explained that Zambian journalists have made some strides in this regard, but was quick to state that more needs to be done.
She further stated that there is need for advocates of sexual reproductive health rights to ensure close collaboration with the media in order to enhance the discourse around sexual reproductive health rights as well as illegal and legal abortions in Zambia.
