A seven-year-old girl of Hopetown, West Coast Berbice has been admitted a patient at the Fort Wellington Hospital after her stepmother physically abused her yesterday midday and police are looking for the woman.
The child was beaten with a “wire and bamboo stick” because she refused to “wash clothes” when she returned home from school during the lunch break. She still ended up doing the laundry despite the hits.
After that, residents saw the child running all the way to school while clutching a banana.
Her right hand is swollen as a result of the blows and was hurting her and she also had a fever.
Officers from the Fort Wellington Police Station visited the woman’s home twice to have her arrested but her house was tightly shut.
When this newspaper saw the child yesterday she displayed a mark on her face as well as cuts and bruises about her hands, back, tummy, buttocks and other parts of her body that were inflicted during previous beatings.
The Grade Two student was also badly beaten yesterday morning because she did not wake up in time for school. The abuse was exposed after the Schools’ Welfare Officers of Region Five visited the school yesterday.
Reports are that after they learnt of the girl’s plight they reported the matter to the police and also referred it to the Probation & Welfare Department of the region which has taken steps to have the child protected.
The parents were previously called in to the probation department. A source said the child would sometimes tell her teachers about the abuse and they would inform the welfare officers.
The woman had been “warned repeatedly to desist from abusing the child and she kept promising that she would.”
However the situation never changed and the girl kept suffering at the hands of the woman, especially when her brothers – who were against her actions – were not at home.
This newspaper learnt that recently the child was pushed down the stairs because she “did not want to wipe the stairs.”
The girl would sometimes be locked in the house alone all day without any food.
She would sometimes be beaten because she does not know how to say “the Lord’s prayer.”
According to reports the girl was placed in an orphanage before the stepmother removed her and promised to take care of her.
