A 24-year-old hairdresser of Lusaka who was too desperate to have a child in her less-than-twoyear marriage has been sentenced to three years imprisonment for stealing her friend’s baby. After lying to her husband that she had conceived, Mary Sakala went to steal her friend’s baby boy, who was barely a month old.

This is a case in which Sakala, of Chilenje South, pleaded guilty to child stealing. On April 12 this year, Sakala stole a child from Memory Kasangali. When the matter came up for plea yesterday before magistrate Felix Kaoma, Sakala admitted committing the offence. Asked why she stole the child, Sakala said: “I just wanted to keep the child.

” Facts of the matter are that in 2016, Sakala met Ms Kasangali in Kamwala South where she (Sakala) was living with her cousin Lillian Shawa. In the same year, Sakala moved to Mtendere where she got married in 2018 but to date, the couple has been childless. Last month, Sakala phoned Ms Shawa and requested for Ms Kasangali’s number.

When asked why she wanted the number, Sakala told her cousin that she wanted to buy clothes for Ms Kasangali’s baby. On the same day, Ms Kasangali woke up around 08:00 hours and changed her baby’s clothes. She later received a phone call from Sakala, who asked her to go to the roadside to collect clothes she had bought for the baby.

Ms Kasangali left the baby asleep and went to meet Sakala by the roadside but did not find her. She then made several phone calls to Sakala which went unanswered. When Ms Kasangali rushed back home to attend to her baby, she was shocked that the infant was missing. After a fruitless search, the distressed mother reported the matter to police, whose investigations led to Sakala’s arrest. Sakala admitted stealing the baby, who was found at her mother’s house in Mtendere.

In mitigation, Sakala asked the court to be lenient because she fends for her grandmother. But in passing the sentence, magistrate Kaoma, who described Sakala’s conduct as unfortunate, wondered why she became too desperate to have a child. “You’re still a very young person and still had a chance to have children. I sentence you to 36 months simple imprisonment from the date of your arrest,” he said.