The Rivers State Response Team on Violence Against Women & Children have arrested a woman, Mrs. Eze, and her grown-up daughter, Jennifer over the maltreatment and regular abuse of a teenage girl engaged by them as a maid in Port Harcourt.
The Team said the arrest followed a report from whistleblowers, and the management of the school the girl attends in Agip area of Port Harcourt after the teenage girl survived been murdered by Mrs. Eze who threw a kitchen knife directly at her.
Tombari Dumka-Kote, Coordinator, Rivers State Response Team on Violence Against Women & Children/ Chairman, Rivers Indigenous NGOs & Civil Society Network (RINGOCS) made the disclosure after the arrest of Mrs. Eze and Jennifer in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Dumka-Kote who stated that the suspects who are now in police custody have admitted to committing the crime, said it was ungodly for anyone to inflict the degree of physical injuries suffered by the teenager on a fellow human.
According to the Team Coordinator, the girl will be re-united with her biological parents as soon as contacts are established. He urged school heads and neighbours to always report cases of abused children to the Team and other relevant agencies to save the lives of many children suffering from child labour and abuse in the hands of their guardians and employers.
The teenager and maid to Mrs. Eze is said to have been brought into Port Harcourt from Isielu, Ebonyi State through scouting agents and handed over to one Chukwuemeka, who subsequently handed the girl to another woman before she was brought into the suspects home in Port Harcourt.
The suspects and her grown-up daughter hail from Anambra State, and have never known or seen the parents of the teenager since she was brought to them over a year now.
Physical bruises, open wounds suffered from cuts with a kitchen knife, and marks from canning allegedly with 6mm electric cables where all over the child who also said she was fed once a day as a maid by Mrs. Eze and Jennifer.
‘sponsors of Gender Based violence, and the abuse of children is no longer tolerable’. We are now going round schools and communities to look for children who have become victims, and perpetrators of such abuses will have to answer for their wicked acts’, Dumka-Kote stated.
Edison Belaanen
Media/Communications Officer