A 20-year-old man from the Muchinga province’s Mafinga region has accused his 17-year-old wife of hiding their child’s birth from the police.
It’s thought that Juliet Namwaba, who was eight months pregnant, gave birth while hiding it from her husband Isau Kanyika, who is 20 years old, by saying she miscarried.
She led them to the supposed location of the burial when they inquired about where she had buried the baby because she claimed to have had a miscarriage, but there were only diapers there and no body.
Since then, police have started looking into the situation.
Ronald Zambo, the deputy commanding officer for Muchinga province, reported that on April 16, 2023, police received an allegation of birth concealment.
According to him, the incident happened on April 15th of this year at Kalyamani village between the hours of 08:00 and 14:00.
“Brief facts of the matter are that the suspect, Juliet got married to Mr Kanyika in June 2022 and in August 2022, she got pregnant and she started going for antenatal at Kalyamani clinic. From September 2022 the suspect had been going for antenatal until on April 15th, 2023 around 14:00hours when her husband discovered that the pregnancy was no longer there,” he said.
He said when the husband reached home from kalyamani market his wife could not tell him what happened to her, until he asked his mother who had been with his wife.
“She was surprised to learn that her daughter in-law had a miscarriage without informing her. When they asked her where she had buried the baby, the suspect led them into the bush, but they could not find the baby. They only found some diapers,” he said.
He said the husband then reported the matter to a Community Crime Prevention Unit member Joseph Mugala on April 16th and he later too reported the matter to Mafinga Police station.
“Acting on the report, officers visited the scene where the suspect was claiming to have dumped the baby and nothing was found apart from the diapers. Officers interviewed the suspect and she insisted that the place she took them was the actual place where she dumped the baby. The suspect was later taken to Mafinga District Hospital for medical examination and antenatal book from kalyamani clinic was retrieved and kept as part of evidence. The suspect will be charged accordingly,” he said.
