End of the road between Mary and Isaac
By Charles Musonda
Mary Chisopa and Isaac Zulu have divorced after she told the court he does not love her and he had been taking ARVs before he married her without informing her.
Chisopa, 30, told a court even another woman Zulu had married did not know that he was HIV positive.
She told Matero Local Court magistrates Moses Lubuwa, Nancy Ngoma and Victoria Ndhlovu that she got married to Zulu in 2016.
They lived in George Compound
.
Their problems started in 2020 when he found another job at the Food Reserve Agency (FRA) where he started getting K8,000 salary.
“He would give me K400 and spend the rest on alcohol at a night club and switch off his phone whenever he was partying with other women. In 2024 I was pregnant but he said he had stopped producing children and refused to buy things for the baby,” Chisopa testified.
She said before deserting home, Zulu would leave her with as little as K30 but was managing to drink alcohol heavily and sleep out for two weeks.
Chisopa said Zulu stopped supporting their children.
While he was away their landlord evicted her because he had not paid rent for three months.
In January this year Zulu and his relatives came to her parents and sought reconciliation.
She said she accepted to reconcile with Zulu but while she was waiting to reunite with him she just heard that he had married another woman with whom he has a baby.
Chisopa said she was the one who even used to get ARVs for him and that even she is now on the same treatment after she learned her HIV status during ante natal checkups.
But Zulu said the problems in their marriage started in 2017 when they had one child.
In 2019 they went on separation for one year.
He said later Chisopa’s family started calling to tell him that she had changed as she used to come home drunk and sniffed snuff tobacco locally known as insunko.
She had also lost respect for him.
In her judgment, magistrate Ndhlovu found that there was violence in the marriage and infidelity on Zulu’s part; and that he had admitted stopping providing for the children.
She then grantedthe two divorce and ordered Zulu to compensate Chisopa with K10,000 in K500 monthly installments and that he should be paying her K1,000 monthly for their children.
