Brother-in-law Pours Hot Water on 13-Year- Old Housemaid

A 13-year-old girl, Precious Edu, has accused the brother-in law of her employer of pouring hot water on her. Narrating her ordeal on her sick bed, Edu, who is currently being treated at the Calabar General Hospital, said she was brought to Ekorinim area of the state from Obudu in the northern part of the state to work as housemaid on the agreement that she would continue her secondary education.

Edu said, “Sometime in 2012, one woman, Amaman appealed to my mother to release me as a housemaid to her sister, Esther Amunde, residing in Calabar because she needed somebody to stay with her.

“When my mother accepted, it was with the understanding that I would continue my schooling. I initially stayed with Amunde’s mother in Obudu for three months before Amunde came during Obudu new yam festival in August 2012 to take me to Calabar.”

Edu said on getting to Calabar, she worked full time as housemaid until September when she expected that she would resume school with other children.

Edu said, “Amunde refused to register me in school insisting that my duty in her house was to take care of her (Amunde) son.

“I was attending Girls Secondary School in my village and I was in JS-1. Even when I was with her mother (Amunde) briefly before coming to Calabar, she allowed me to go to school. But my boss said because of her son, I cannot attend school.”

Edu alleged that in the course of carrying out her duties, she was maltreated and abused by Papa. She said, “In the morning of March 9, I unplugged a kettle and was turning the water in it into a bucket when Papa said the water splashed on him. He soon brought a smaller bowl, dipped it into the bucket of hot water and poured it on me.

“When I told my boss about the incident, she neither reacted nor did anything to the burn. It was after my skin had started peeling because of the burn that Amunde gave me two tablets of Panadol to use.

“However, when I went to fetch water from the borehole five days later, some neighbours saw my peeling skin and screamed. One of them took me to the general hospital.”

At the hospital, a nurse, who identified herself as Alice, said a child rights activist, Mr. James Ibor, was called and he, in turn, alerted the police.

Ibor said, “We have made written requests to the Cross River State Commissioner of Police to effect the arrest of Amunde and Papa to face the law because what they have done amounts to felony.”

Culled from Punch