A Chinese couple in Abuja has been arrested by the Nigerian police after their Nigerian employees claimed they were locked up in their apartment for the past four months.
The employees, who have been in the couple’s residence in the Jabi area of Abuja for months, were “rescued” by the personnel of the Utako Divisional Police Station on Tuesday following a tip-off by a resident, who reported the incident to the Human Rights radio station.
The Chinese couple and their Nigerian employees were taken to the police station. They were later released on bail.
A video shared by the International Centre for Investigative Reporting shows the victims claiming they had been locked up in the apartment since February.
They said their Chinese employer forbid them from leaving the house and those who dared to leave to get supplies were penalized with salary deduction.
One staff who was sick claimed the couple didn’t allow her to leave the house to seek medical help.
The Enugu state police command has arrested a woman, Mrs. Ifeoma Ezeugwu, for allegedly drilling nails in two places into the head of a-10 years old girl, Miss Chinonye Nnadi, who served as her housemaid.
Chairperson of the WomenAids Collective WACOL, Prof. Joy Ngozi Ezeilo, who brought the little girl’s plight to the public, said her office was alerted on Friday about the case of Chinonye who sustained grievous bodily harm from Ezeugwu who she works for as a domestic help.
“This is gory and torture of a young innocent girl whose only crime is being born to a poor widow who had to give her up to live with someone in the hope that she will get an education and survive. We pray that she recovers. We demand full wrath of the law on this woman that inflicted such a level of physical injury on this girl.
I spoke to the distraught mother of the victim. She is a poor widow living in a rural village in Aku, near Nsukka, Enugu state. It is time to eradicate child labour, ban and punish heavily anyone using children as domestic help. The Child Rights Act and the NAPTIP Act must be effectively enforced. WACOL will follow through to ensure that justice is done in this matter” Ezeilo said
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