The police in Lagos on Monday took into custody, a
40-year-old trader, Mrs. Deborah Gabriel, who brutalised her housemaid,
eight-year-old Glory Ugbon, and then put pepper in the girl’s eyes and private
part when the girl decided to steal a plate of rice when she was hungry.
Five months after Glory started living with the trader as
her housemaid, the girl has been allegedly brutalised many times and there are
so many marks all over her body.
Glory, who had been in the servitude of Deborah in Surulere,
Lagos since November 2015, said her elder sister simply took her to the woman
at the time during her visit to Akwa Ibom State and said she would follow her
to Lagos to be her housemaid.
“Madam said she would put me in school and my sister told me
that she would treat me well. The woman is not related to us. I work at home
all the time but sometimes when she is not happy with me, she beats me till I
cannot walk” Glory said.
But on Sunday, April 10, the co-tenants of Deborah decided
to take action to prevent the woman from killing the girl when they noticed that
she had taken the torture of the girl a notch higher.
The neighbours alerted child rights activists, who promptly
notified the police when the little girl would not stop screaming.
Glory, who was later brought to the Aguda Police Division,
Surulere, Lagos along with Deborah, said on that particular day, she was simply
eating at the backyard of their house, when her madam accused her of stealing
food.
Because of that, Deborah brutalised the girl first.
“When she was tired of beating me, she forced my legs apart
and rubbed some pepper that she had just ground in my eyes and my bum bum
(private part),” she said.
When the pain became unbearable, neighbours raised the alarm
when they learnt what the woman did to the girl.
Glory, who was sobbing as she was brought to the police
station along with her madam, explained that she was very hungry when Deborah
caught her eating and became furious.
Glory’s case is one of many similar incidents in which
housemaids have been brutalised by their bosses. It is unclear under what
circumstances Glory was handed over to Deborah. She said she was in Primary 3
before she left her parents in their village.
The girl told our correspondent that her mother and father
were in the village in Akwa Ibom State.
“Since November that she brought me to Lagos, she has not
talked about any school for me,” Glory said.
On Monday after our correspondent spoke with the sobbing
girl, she had to be taken to Mirabel Sexual Assault Referral Centre in Ikeja,
Lagos for treatment because she would not stop complaining about the pepper,
some of which had become lodged inside her.
When our correspondent spoke with Deborah, the woman was
apologetic as she explained that “something just came over me” when she
tortured the girl.
“Please, help me. I am so sorry for what I did. I know it is
wrong but I just could not control my anger. I promise to take care of her and
give her adequate treatment now. I am so sorry for what I did.” When our
correspondent spoke with the woman’s husband, Victor, he said that he slept too
deeply that day that he did not hear as his wife brutalised the girl and put
pepper in her private part.
He said, “My wife flogged the girl because she caught her
eating in the backyard. I told the girl too that she should not have eaten at
the back of the house. I was the one who even prepared the stew.
“I went to sleep later and when I woke up the following
morning, I saw all the wounds on the girl’s body. That was when I also knew
that she had put pepper in the girl’s private part.
“I did not know that she beat her so badly. I guess I slept
too deeply and did not hear the girl’s screaming because of the drug I took
that day. I would have intervened.”
Asked how such an underage girl was brought into their home
as a housemaid, Victor said that when his wife brought the girl from Akwa Ibom,
during a visit to their hometown, he challenged her because the girl was very
young.
“I told her the girl was too young, but she said the girl is
hardworking and that she would cope. I really blame my wife for what happened
but I assure you sir that we would treat her. We would take her to the hospital
for treatment and return her to her parents,” he said.
She was remanded at the Kirikiri Prison, pending the
perfection of her bail.
Founder and Coordinator of the Jeshabel Touch-A-Heart
Foundation, Mrs. Favour Benson, who took up the girl’s case, told Saturday
PUNCH that at the moment, Glory is being given refuge in a state government
home in Lagos but that effort would be made to contact her parents so that they
could take custody of her.
She said, “The girl’s case was particularly annoying because
the woman did not express any remorse for the way she tortured the girl.
“With the kind of scars on the girl’s body within the six
months she had been with her, it is clear she had been torturing the girl as
soon as she started living with her.
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