A middle aged woman,
Ene Edem Okon, has been arrested by the police
for allegedly inflicting bodily
harm and tying her 11-year-old daughter, Queeneth Ene Edem, hands and legs for being wayward. She was arrested when
Queeneth appeared in her school, Government Primary School, Akim, with multiple
wounds on her chest, stomach and buttocks prompting the school authorities to
report the matter to the police at the Akim Police Station.
The girl narrated to
Sunday Vanguard that, on February 17,
she left home at Eneyo village in Akpabuyo Local Government Area for the Maternity Junction Settlement, some four
kilometers away from home, to meet her
cousin, one Blessing, but did not return home. “We were waiting for Blessing’s
friend from whom she wanted to collect something but she delayed in coming and
we waited till night and, because we were afraid of going back home, we slept in an uncompleted
building at the Maternity Junction”, she said.
he 11-year-old said the next day, one of her friends saw her
at the Maternity Junction and told her that her mother was looking
for her with a machete after which she became afraid to go back home.
“We stayed on the road near our house and were breaking kernel to eat
when my mother sent somebody to come and
catch us. That person came pretending to play with us but suddenly
grabbed me and dragged me to my
mother”.
The mother, angry, allegedly got hold of her and used a rod
to hit her all over her body, thus leaving
her with severe wounds. “She also put the kitchen knife in the fire she
was cooking and when it was hot, she placed
it on my buttocks”, the girl stated.
When Sunday Vanguard met Mrs Ene Okon at the Akim Police
Station, she appeared remorseful, stating that
she was driven by anger because Queeneth
was stubborn and had formed the habit of spending the night outside at
such a tender age. “I sent her to school in far away Calabar because I don’t
trust the school here in Akpabuyo but she is just too stubborn, so I had to
teach her a lesson.”
Mr Hogan Bassey, the police spokesman for Cross River Police
Command, said the woman would appear in
court after investigations are concluded.
Mr Bassey Ibor, a
child rights activist, said children’s courts in the state are not
functioning and called on the state government to fund the courts. “The cases
we have taken to the children’s courts
have suffered long adjournments because the judges are not sitting.
Government should, as a matter of urgency, ensure that the courts are funded so
that these children would not continue
to be denied of justice.”
