The pictures also received by MISA Zambia and many other citizens are circulating through emails in addition to The Post sending out letters to which the same photographs have been attached to key government departments as well as the Vice President's office.

The photographs together with the letter were specifically sent to George Kunda, the Zambian Vice President, Secretary to the Cabinet Joshua Kanganja, Minister for Health Kapembwa Simbao, Nongovernmental Coordinating Council (NGOCC) and Zambia National Women's Lobby (ZNWL) by The Post Newspapers.

According to President Banda, the women movement went to meet him at state house to show their displeasure following publication of the pictures through emails and through letters to the mentioned offices.

Mr Banda speaking at a press briefing at State House on the material date, broke into a local language ci Nyanja and said Wamene uyo mwana, the child who took these pictures of the mother I wish him good luck. He questioned the publication of what he termed pornographic material.

He said the pictures were demeaning to women because they showed a woman in child birth and said that the women movement in Zambia had raised concern over it and named it as part of the decline of moral standards in the country.

And in an interview with MISA Zambia on June 24, 2009, Amos Malupenga, Managing Editor for The Post stated that his organisation wrote the letter and enclosed the picture with the hope of assisting the state to understand the severity of the situation on the ground caused by the nurses and health worker's strike to ordinary Zambians.

He said the pictures were not published in his newspaper because The Post found them sensitive, he however said that the pictures were not pornographic as child birth could not fall under that category. Malupenga explained that the statement that his photographers took the pictures were untrue because the pictures were captured by the husband of the woman and were taken to The Post by the said husband with a request that they be published for the public and authority's to know of the dire health crisis caused by the strike.

He denied allegations made by the Special Assistant to the President for Press and Public Relations Dickson Jere during the same conference that the pictures were being circulated by The Post through email as untrue.

He explained that The Post had not posted the pictures to anybody but the mentioned official and Civil Society Organizations.

Rashweat Mukundu
Programme Specialist: Media Monitoring and Research
Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) Regional Secretariat
Private Bag 13386
21 Johann Albrecht Street
Windhoek
Tel: +264 61 232975
Mobile: + 264 81 367 5362

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