Sophia Shaidu, as she lay on her
stomach on a bed in the children's ward
of the Aniyun Hospital, Gbagada, Lagos.
The nurse who had taken our
correspondent in to see her was happy
that the girl could at least fall asleep
after days of excruciating pains that kept
her awake.
"Some people are here to talk to you,"
she was told.
Sophia spoke only Ebira language. She
does not understand English; not even
pidgin English because her guardian did
not enrol her in school after she was
brought to Lagos to work as a
housemaid about three years ago.
So, our correspondent was only able to
speak to her through an interpreter.
One thing was immediately clear when
Sophia finally sat up with a considerable
pain: dark marks dotted her body from
her neck to her ankle.
She hung her left arm awkwardly, which
made her flinch at the nurse's touch.
"We are planning to do an X-ray on the
arm. It's likely she has a fracture there,"
the nurse said.
"The marks on my body are from
beatings," the girl later explained.
Sophia said that after one of such
beatings, she had not been able to use
her left arm, which was now swollen,
hard and discoloured at the elbow area.
The girl pointed accusing fingers at her
guardian, Bashir Shuaibu, who is from
Kogi State.
But what brought Sophia to the hospital
was more dire and life-threatening than
just the marks on her body and the
fractured arm.
The little girl has a gash that is about six
inches in diametre on her buttocks. It
was created by sore, said to have
developed after several beatings by
Shuaibu.
Sophia said each time he spanked her,
her buttocks swelled up and before it
healed up, he spanked her again.
She told our correspondent that her
parents asked her to live with him to
make a living.
She said, "We are not related. My
parents asked me to live with him in
Lagos so that I could work and make
money to take care of myself.
"He beat me almost every day and I
don't usually know what I did wrong.
Anytime he beat me, I would scream
and ask him what I did wrong, but he
would not say anything. He would just
continue to beat me.
"He usually beat me in the buttocks. I
got a wound after a beating and I could
not sit. He beat me on the same spot
every day. He used wire and spatula
(what Yoruba call orogun)."
Shuaibu is married and has a young
child. Our correspondent asked if his
wife ever joined in the beating as well
but the girl explained that the wife
usually told him to stop when the
beating became too much.
"The last time he beat me (last week
Friday), madam complained again and
said it was his beating that made my
buttocks have sore. She then said they
had to take me to the hospital."
When our correspondent visited the
hospital in company with the Director of
the Esther Child Rights Foundation, Mrs.
Esther Ogwu, who is handling the case,
the girl's buttocks had been wrapped in
a heavy dressing.
But a doctor who treated the girl was so
alarmed by what he saw that he took
many photographs before he dressed
the wound.
"She still has a long way to go. Because
of the extent of the injury, it cannot
heal on its own. She has to undergo skin
grafting. That cannot even be done at
the moment, she has to remain in
observation for a while," the doctor
said.
The flesh on Sophia's buttocks when she
was brought to the hospital was oozing
pus and had to be scraped off, leaving a
large gash.
The picture of the naked wound was so
horrific that Saturday PUNCH could not
publish it.
When our correspondent asked Sophia if
she ever thought about running away
because of the physical abuse, she said
she thought about it but she didn't
know where to run to.
"I like my mother but I don't want to go
back to our village. My mother told me
when I was leaving home to remain in
Lagos and work," the girl said.
She said her mother did not know what
she was passing through because she
had never spoken with her since she
was brought to Shuaibu's house to work
three years ago.
She does not know her mother's phone
number.
The girl said the man had told her
parents that she would be enrolled in
school, but that never happened.
Shuaibu who was arrested and detained
at the office of the Lagos State Taskforce
has been released on bail. The hospital
said he had not been forthcoming with
the fund for the treatment of the girl.
Shuaibu, who claimed he still intended
to put the girl in school, said he only
spanked her when she acted stubbornly,
lied and defecated in the house.
"Her parents are my relations. She is
lazy and does no work. I did not know
she had injury on her buttocks because
she was hiding it. It was when we
noticed it that we brought her to the
hospital. I really regret that something
like this happened to her," he said.
Ogwu said cases of extreme physical
abuse on housemaids were becoming
common in the country because
perpetrators were not being jailed for
such crimes.
She said, "When we were contacted by
nurses at the hospital and we visited the
girl, what I saw was something I almost
could not handle emotionally. I cried
because I simply could not understand
that a human being would do that to a
child.
"Is it that people do not know that
physical abuse or any kind of abuse of a
child is a serious crime? Or is it that
people believe they can bribe the police
and get away with this kind of crime
when they are arrested? It is just very
sad.
"That child cannot be normal again
because the money required for her
treatment cannot be paid by the man
who committed the crime. The only
choice we have left is to see if the state
government can wade into the matter
and get her treated in a government-
owned hospital."
She said the parents of the girl should
be prosecuted along with the man who
perpetrated the abuse.
Our correspondent contacted the
Chairman, Lagos State Task Force, Supol
Bayo Suleiman, to find out what
arrangement had been made to hold
Shuaibu accountable for what he did.
Suleiman said he was released on bail
with sureties and had been directed to
report to the task force office daily.
He said, "Referring to the girl as a
housemaid is incorrect because the man
said they are relations. He was just
trying to help the family of the child.
The only mistake he made was that he
did not bother to check if the spanking
he gave the girl to correct her had left a
physical injury on her. He was just trying
to correct the girl to do what is right.
"You know when a girl defecates on the
bed everyday and one has tried to
correct her with no change, he may
have to punish her to ensure she
changes. But it is unfortunate it led to
this kind of thing in this case."
When told that the man's 'correction'
showed numerous marks of spanking all
over the body of the girl, Suleiman said
"Truly, spanking a child should have
limits. But in this case, it's just
unfortunate that it led to such injury."
He explained that his office was still
handling the issue to ensure that proper
care was given to the girl.
The Child Rights Act 2003, Section 14
states that "Every child has a right to
parental care and protection. No child
shall be separated from his parents
against the wish of the child except for
the purpose of his education and
welfare."
Section 11 of the law also criminalises
various forms of abuse of a child, one of
which is the extreme physical abuse that
Sophia has suffered.
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