A woman sued her boyfriend – who is also the father of her child because he didn’t marry her after eight years together.
Gertrude Ngoma, 26, from Kennya told a court in Zambia, Africa, that she was tired of waiting to get married to her partner, Herbert Salaliki, 28.
Ngoma was still living with her parents, and the child they’d had together, but Salaliki lived in a separate home.
Ngoma told a court she doubted her boyfriend’s loyalty and claimed she had discovered he was having s.e.x.u.a.l relations with another woman.
She said her boyfriend had promised to wed her – but the proposal had never come true.
Husbands-to-be In Zambia often pay a dowry to the family of their intended bride. It’s called lobola, or an “appreciation fee”, and it is intended as a sign that he will look after his wife well.
According to Ngoma, her partner had made the dowry payment but had not married the mother of his child, whose age has not been revealed.
Fed up with waiting, Ngoma said she decided to sue him instead. She told the court,“He has never been serious, that is why I bought him to court because I deserve to know the way forward and our future,”
Salaliki in his defence, said he was not in the financial position to afford a wedding. He also told the court his girlfriend hadn’t given him “the attention he needed.”
The couple wasn’t married, so there was not a lot that the Zambian court can do.The judge presiding over the case ruled that they should try to reconcile their differences out of court.
