100 US

"It's just too much," H says.

Her husband's 19-year-old sister got into a scrape. A married-boyfriend-got-me-pregnant-and-then-I-tried-to-abort sort of a scrape. When the tetes (Shona word for aunties) refused to help, H and her husband were summoned.

Nyasha looked OK when they saw her first. Truculent even. H and her husband stayed for five days, noting how the other women in the township refused to greet the family. Nyasha had a certain sort of a reputation, it appeared.

Just as they were about to go, Nyasha got ill.

"Please, take me to hospital," she pleaded. Her stomach was swollen.

"Who did this to you?" H said. "A woman, six streets away," the girl said. 700 US later, H and her husband got Nyasha admitted to hospital (government hospitals have reopened their doors but patients now have to find 70 US per night, excluding medical procedures). When the doctors operated, they found a sharp object still inside her. And a rotting foetus.

H is furious. They'd been saving - H and her husband -- for a church blessing on their marriage, a childhood dream H has refused to let go of. "If we'd left her, she'd have died and then we'd have had to pay for the funeral, which would have been more," she says grimly.

But now that Nyasha is back on her feet and claiming she "did it" to herself, H and her husband are going back to the township to confront her and the maternal relative they suspect may have put her in touch with the woman six streets away. Who, by the way, charges 100 US per girl and apparently sees five a day.

"It's a police matter," H says. "They'll make them talk. I want my money back."