In a case that was said to have been reported on that Friday by a member of Child’s
Protection Network, (a non-governmental organisation), Pastor Marcus
William, the eight-year-old girl had allegedly poured hot
water on the head, neck and back side of the 14-year-old housemaid,
whose name was given as Mary Komule, on September 5 for not answering
her in time when she asked Mary to make her Indomie.
Acting
on this information, policemen and women attached to the Juvenile
Welfare section of Iyaganku went to the girl’s parents’ house at
Olaniran Fagbemi Street, Joyce B area of Ibadan immediately
after receiving the information, but was said to have been resisted by
the girl’s mother who reportedly told his gateman to tell the police
that she was not around.
It
was further gathered that the police officers spent close to four hours
outside the gate and had prepared to obtain a search warrant from a
court when the woman’s lawyer came around and persuaded her to follow
the law enforcement agents.
In
her statement to the police at Iyaganku, Ewaoluwa claimed that she
wanted to eat Indomie and informed the housemaid, but she was busy
cleaning the floor on which palm oil poured. The housemaid, Mary, had
reportedly put some water on the fire to further clean the floor when
she noticed the floor was still slippery.
Angered
by the fact that her request was not promptly attended to, the little
girl had reportedly ordered Mary to kneel down and put her hands behind
her back, after which she tied them with a scarf. She was said to have
claimed that she first poured cold water on the housemaid but when she
saw that the teenager did not feel any pain, she took the water the maid
was boiling on the fire and poured it on the helpless girl, right from
the head to the back of her neck.
Writhing
in pain, Mary had reportedly robbed the scalded skin with her hands,
resulting in the skin peeling off. Though the girl’s mother was said to
be away in Lagos when the incident occurred, Ewaoluwa, when asked
whether she was punished for her misdeeds, told the police that her
mother scolded her by asking her to ‘face the wall’.
The
mother of the girl who was crying profusely as the crowd booed her and
her daughter told the police that she took Mary to a nearby chemist for
treatment when she returned from her journey and was informed of the
occurrence. She also said that the girl had been with her
for about six moths, adding that she didn’t want to come out to the
police initially because she was scared.
However,
the housemaid countered her, saying that she was not taken anywhere for
treatment and had been in pain until the time of her rescue. Her burns
were only dabbed with Gentian Violet when Crime Features saw the girl at
the police station. When asked why she didn’t resist the abuse on her,
Mary said her mistress had strictly warned her not to touch the girl on
any account.
Sources living around the home of the girl’s parents told Crime Features that the housemaid had once attempted to run away but
was held back by people. Since then, they said, she had been under
close monitoring by her mistress. The gateman of the house also told the
police that he had only worked with the family for nine days before the
incident but had never seen the girl outside until that day.
Confirming
the story, the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Clement Adoda said
that the housemaid had been handed over to the Ministry of Women Affairs
in Oyo State while the NAPTIP had also been contacted so that proper
repatriation of the girl back to her country could be effected. Mr Adoda
added that the little suspect and her mother had been granted bail
while the case would be charged to court after the resumption of the
legal year.
No comments:
Post a Comment