A mother-of-two and food vendor dipped her five-year-old daughter’s hands in hot water, blistering it for stealing her fish.
Tina Idoroyen lives with her daughters at No 2, Gregory Street, Ikot Ansa community in Calabar, Cross River, prepared 19 pieces of fried fish for her food, wet out, an came back to find a piece left.
Her daughter ate it all.
In anger, Idoroyen immersed the girls’ thieving hands in hot water.
Counsel to Basic Rights Counsel Initiative (BRCI), the Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) in charge of the child’s case, Mr. James Ibor, alleged that the mother admitted that the little girl had not eaten before stealing the fish.
“The woman has nothing, the father of the child abandoned them two years ago and she still has another eight-year-old daughter,’ Ibor said.
“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.”
Mr Ibor said 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.
Ibor, who assured that the perpetrator will soon be handed over to the police for prosecution, explained that the child has been moved from a private hospital to the General Hospital in Calabar, where a specialist is handling her treatment.
“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.”