ONLOOKERS were held with shock and disbelief on
Friday, September 7 at Iyaganku Police Division when an eight-year-old
girl, Ewaoluwa (surname withheld), was brought to the station for
changing the looks of her mother’s housemaid when she allegedly bathed
the Togolese girl with hot water for not responding to her call that she
needed to eat Indomie in time.
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. Click to continue reading.
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.
Source: Tribune
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