A woman in Swaziland
(eSwatini) has been sentenced to 30 years jail with the option of a E45,000
fine for selling pills that induced abortion.
Celucolo Gaolaolwe, aged
41, herself a mother of five children, had been selling Cytotec pills for about
10 years, the eSwatini
Observer reported.
Under the Swazi Constitution abortion is illegal in Swaziland except under
strict circumstances, including where a mother’s life is in danger.
Gaolaolwe was sentenced at
the Municipal Council of Mbabane offices by Principal Magistrate Fikile
Nhlabatsi. Gaolaolwe was also convicted of forging prescriptions to get the
pills.
Gaolaolwe admitted that she
sold each tablet for E150 and made more than E31,000 from her trade.
Because abortions are illegal in Swaziland it is
difficult to say accurately how many are performed in the kingdom. However, in
August 2018 the Times of Swaziland
reported that every month, nurses at the Raleigh Fitkin
Memorial (RFM) Hospital in Manzini attended more than 100 cases of young women
who had committed illegal abortions.
The IRIN news agency, quoting the Family Life
Association of Swaziland (FLAS), a family planning organization, reported that
in October 2012 more
than 1,000 women were treated for abortion-related complications
at a single clinic in Swaziland. Many of the deaths were the result of
haemorrhaging, while others resulted from the patient’s delay in seeking
medical treatment for other complications stemming from illegal terminations.
In November 2012 the IRIN
news agency reported that 16 percent of all women deaths in
the government hospital in Mbabane that year were the result of botched
abortions. It said that this figure was only those cases that were reported,
there were certainly other deaths unreported.
In December 2018 the Swazi Observer reported the number of illegal ‘backstreet’
abortions taking place in Swaziland was ‘escalating’ because social media had
made it easier to obtain abortion pills.
See also
Death
of Swaziland schoolgirl after illegal abortion highlights suffering of women in
kingdom
U.S.
halts funding to Swaziland NGO as anti-abortion policy bites
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