Advocate of Women’s Rights on Trial
Chansa Kabwala charged with obcenity (Timesonline August 28)
She looks more like an ambitious bank executive than an enemy of society, yet according to her Government Chansa Kabwela, 29, is a purveyor of pornography.
Today Ms Kabwela, a mother-of-two and passionate advocate of women’s rights, goes on trial on obscenity charges. If found guilty she faces a possible five-year prison term.
As news editor of Zambia’s main independent daily newspaper The Post, Ms Kabwela was appalled by the effect that a major strike by nurses last May was having on the poorest people, particularly women.
When she received pictures of a woman forced to give birth in the grounds of Lusaka’s main public hospital, she sent them to ministers and women’s organisations with a letter urging the Government to do more to settle the strike. The woman had allegedly been turned away from two other clinics before struggling to the hospital, where she was also denied admission because of the strike.
The pictures were too graphic to be published by the paper, which had been waging a campaign on behalf of the nurses. The Post has been a thorn in the side of successive governments, frequently carrying stories on corruption and even vote-rigging allegations.
“I wanted to illustrate how bad things had got in the public health sector. If this was happening in Lusaka, imagine what it is like in rural areas. Unlike ministers ordinary people can’t go instead to private hospitals,” Ms Kabwela told The Times.
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