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Mother burns 11years old daughter buttocks with knife

Published

10 years ago

February 23, 2014

A middle aged woman, Ene Edem Okon, has been arrested by the
police for allegedly inflicting bodily harm and tying her 11-year-old
daughter, Queeneth Ene Edem, hands and legs for being wayward.
She was arrested when Queeneth appeared in her school,
Government Primary School, Akim, with multiple wounds on her
chest, stomach and buttocks prompting the school authorities to report
the matter to the police at the Akim Police Station.
The girl narrated to Sunday Vanguard that, on February 17, she
left home at Eneyo village in Akpabuyo Local Government Area
for the Maternity Junction Settlement, some four kilometers away
from home, to meet her cousin, one Blessing, but did not return home.
“We were waiting for Blessing’s friend from whom she wanted to
collect something but she delayed in coming and we waited till night
and, because we were afraid of going back home, we slept in an
uncompleted building at the Maternity Junction”, she said.
The 11-year-old said the next day, one of her friends saw her at the
Maternity Junction and told her that her mother was looking for her
with a machete after which she became afraid to go back home. “We
stayed on the road near our house and were breaking kernel to eat
when my mother sent somebody to come and catch us. That person
came pretending to play with us but suddenly grabbed me and dragged
me to my mother”.
The mother, angry, allegedly got hold of her and used a rod to hit her
all over her body, thus leaving her with severe wounds. “She also put
the kitchen knife in the fire she was cooking and when it was hot, she
placed it on my buttocks”, the girl stated.
When Sunday Vanguard met Mrs Ene Okon at the Akim Police
Station, she appeared remorseful, stating that she was driven by
anger because Queeneth was stubborn and had formed the habit of
spending the night outside at such a tender age. “I sent her to school
in far away Calabar because I don’t trust the school here in
Akpabuyo but she is just too stubborn, so I had to teach her a lesson.”
Mr Hogan Bassey, the police spokesman for Cross River Police
Command, said the woman would appear in court after investigations
are concluded.
Mr Bassey Ibor, a child rights activist, said children’s courts in the
state are not functioning and called on the state government to fund the
courts. “The cases we have taken to the children’s courts have
suffered long adjournments because the judges are not sitting.
Government should, as a matter of urgency, ensure that the courts are
funded so that these children would not continue to be denied of
justice.”
Source ; Vanguard