29 Mar 2017

Ntando Duma sparks controversy with a tweet about abortion

Cape Town - Local presenter Ntando Duma caused a social media firestorm on Wednesday after she took to Twitter to tell her followers about her family member.

The tweet has now been deleted but read, "Guys, I'm sooooo stressed and very hurt, my cousin just did her third abortion this year and she's proud of it (sic)."

See a screengrab of the tweet, here:

Ntando Duma should take her own advice. Wasn't she telling people to mind their own bussiness a few days ago? pic.twitter.com/RIW3aymKRR
— annaline ?? (@blac_diamond_) March 29, 2017

Duma has since apologised for the post on her Instagram account with this message:

To whom it may concern I would like to apologise to anybody that I may have offended through my earlier tweets regarding a family member whom has undergone a series of abortions. Indeed it was not my place to address her private matters on a public platform even though she had addressed the matter on social media as well. I was speaking from a concerned and emotional place without thinking of the consequences of my words and how offensive, hurtful, and insensitive they might be to not just my family member but anybody else that has gone through what she has whether by choice or not. I would like to express my most sincere apology for the irresponsible manner in which I wrote the tweets and I admit that I could've written those tweets in a more diplomatic and positive fashion. I will admit that I have been frustrated at my family member's actions and poor decisions, however I never aimed to be judgmental towards her by any means. I simply wanted to bring more awareness to the fact that unfortunately young people whom are not nearly ready to be in a committed relationship nor to be parents are still recklessly engaging in unprotected sexual activities... if anything, posting those tweets made me realise that we whom are privileged enough to be informed about the dangers and consequences of unprotected sex, have a huge responsibility to educate, assist and guide young and ill-informed people about how to avoid unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases. I feel very strongly about this subject and still feel that it needs to be addressed urgently and because of the seriousness of this matter I have decided that I will establish a project or awareness campaign that'll aim at educating young people of South Africa (particularly in rural and township schools) about the repercussions of unprotected sex and how to deal with unwanted pregnancies or contraction of STI's. This will take time to organise due to the logistical element of it but I will reach out to as many schools and young people as I can... will keep you informed in this regard as your support is imperative... I can't do it alone.Again I apologise. know that I was coming from a good place
A post shared by Ms Ntando Fleekiswa Duma (@dumantando) on Mar 29, 2017 at 4:52am PDT

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