The seven-year-old Hopetown, West Berbice girl whose stepmother physically abused her last Thursday and caused her to be hospitalized was placed in a home on the Corentyne yesterday.
The Probation and Welfare Department of Region Five took the girl to the home after she was discharged from the Fort Wellington Hospital.
Police are still on the hunt for the stepmother Aungel Alfred who reportedly inflicted the blows on the child with a “wire and bamboo stick.”
She ordered the child to “wash clothes” when she returned home from school during the lunch break and abused her because she refused.
Despite the hits the child was still forced to do the laundry.The child suffered a swollen right hand as a result of the blows.
When this newspaper saw the child a few hours after the incident 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 abuse was exposed after the Schools’ Welfare Officers of Region Five visited the school on the same day.
The child’s father is said to be working in the interior and he and the stepmother were previously called in to the probation department.
The woman had been “warned repeatedly to desist from abusing the child and she kept promising that she would,” officials said.
This newspaper learnt that recently the child was pushed down the stairs because she “did not want to wipe the stairs.”
According to reports the girl was placed in an orphanage before the stepmother removed her and promised to take care of her.
