adminFungai Lupande Court Reporter
A 20-year-old housemaid, who allegedly aborted her four months pregnancy and buried the foetus in a pit, yesterday told the court that her employer told her to do so.Ropafadzo Moyo from Nembudziya, Gokwe, yesterday appeared before Harare magistrate Ms Bianca Makwande.
She is facing a concealing birth of a child charge.
Asked by the magistrate what she meant when she said her employer asked her to do so, Moyo said she had a miscarriage and her employer asked her to take the foetus outside.
“They said it was not possible to keep the child in their house and I should take it out,” she said.
“They advised me to wait for the father so that we could proceed to the police or hospital.”
Ms Makwande postponed the matter to November and released Moyo on her own recognition.
Prosecuting, Ms Audrey Chogumaira alleged that on October 17, Moyo’s employer approached her neighbour Cynthia Karimatsenga, seeking assistance over her suspicion that Moyo could be pregnant.
Moyo was employed as a maid in Eastview Phase 3 and her employer suspected that she was pregnant. The court heard that Moyo was quizzed and denied that she was pregnant, prompting Karimatsenga to ask her to squeeze her breasts.
It is alleged that when some liquid like milk came out of her breasts, Moyo admitted that she was four months pregnant.
She confessed that she aborted the pregnancy and had wrapped the foetus in a black plastic before burying it in a pit that she dug.
The pit was dug and a dead baby girl was recovered.
It was sent to Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals for post-mortem.
Online Reporter