ZAMBIA – Police in Zambia, Chiengi District Luapula Province have arrested a 16 year old girl for attempting to sell her 10 months old biological son.

Reports indicate that Silvia Kapambwe a 16 year old girl who dropped out of school in Grade 10 last year after falling pregnant, was last week reported to police by her friend Melody Bwalya 17, after she told her that she had received K5,500 (Five Thousand Five Hundred Kwacha) from a Congolese Businesswoman who convinced her to sell her son and go back to school.

Teachers at her former school said that before she stopped school, Silvia was very intelligent and was being fully sponsored by CAMFED; this is the organisation which was even paying for her school fees and buying her uniforms but when she stopped everything ended.

And when asked by police why she wanted to sell her son, Silvia said she wanted to use part of the money to buy food at home as well as to pay school fees at another school so that she could continue in Grade 10. She said her former boyfriend Derrick Mwansa (who is now in Grade 11) who made her pregnant has refused being responsible and so she was now struggling to support her child a lone as well as looking for food at home as her father and mother are late and she is staying with her old grandmother.

Silvia is said to be a very intelligent girl in class who has always been taking first position from Grade 1 to 9. At Grade 9 Final Exam, she also came first beating even all boys after she got 457 but stopped school after falling pregnant in Grade 10 last year.

Police say the girl needs counselling as she is capable of doing better in life once she goes back to school.