Woman Arrested For Breastfeeding Neighbour’s Baby

39-year-old Zimbabwean woman, Annie Mpariwa who is HIV positive has been arrested for breastfeeding a neighbour’s baby without her consent. The case which is already in court has been set for further hearing on the 24th of October  for an HIV test to be performed on the toddler. She was arrested last week on charges of common nuisance and should the child test positive; the charge will be raised to “deliberately infecting another person with HIV”. The mother of the 14-month-old baby said seeing her child being breastfed by her neighbour was traumatising.

According to her, the neighbour snatched the child while she was playing outside and hid her in her room. But after searching for the child for quite some time, she went and knocked on Annie’s rented room and got no response. Upon peeping through the window, she saw her breastfeeding the little girl.

I was shocked. I nearly fainted,” she said, adding that her breasts were leaking milk yet she was not a nursing mother or pregnant.