Tina Idoreyen, a food vendor and mother of two, will face criminal trial soon after she allegedly soaked the hands of her five-year-old daughter in hot water for stealing her fish.
The food vendor, who lives in Ikot Ansa, Calabar Municipality, is said to have prepared 19 pieces of fish that she left on the table for attend to a short errand. When she got back, she reportedly met only one piece of fish. She became enraged after discovering that her 5-year-old daughter had eaten the fish and swiftly dipped the hands of the child in boiling water.
James Ibor of Basic Rights Counsel Initiative, BRCI, a non-governmental organisation, NGO, informed that the child admitted to her mother that she stole the fish. “The mother alleged that her five-year-old daughter stole her fish, so she dipped her hands in a very hot water, that was how she reacted to the alleged stealing. Meanwhile, she admitted that when it happened, the child had not eaten, which means she must have been hungry. The woman has nothing, the father of the child abandoned them two years ago and she still has another eight-year-old daughter. They can barely feed and she is owing house rent, so if we had not intervened with treatment immediately, that child’s burns would have been badly infected”, he disclosed.
Ibor further maintained that the matter has not been reported to the police because the child needs the support and care of her mother while in the hospital receiving treatment. He however gave assurances that the matter will soon be handed over to the police for prosecution. “A crime has been committed and of course, the police will have to be notified. She needs to pay for her crime, but we have not taken that decision yet, because it will not be proper to do that now”, Ibor said.
Credit: www.guardianngrng.com
