The Lagos State Child Protection Network (CPN) and the Investigating Police Officer (IPO), have agreed on a N500k fine to send an 8-year-old victim of child labour to school up to JSS3 and help her mother start up a business.
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Vanguardngr reports that the decision was reached, on Tuesday, at a Tinubu Magistrate’s Court. Her boss, Blessing Chiwendu Anezu, who had engaged her as a house-help and allegedly maltreated her, will put down the money.
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Initial payment of N300, 000 was immediately transferred to the account of the mother of the victim who came from Anambra State. .
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According to Mary-Anne Adegoke-Mapenzi, the representative of Christianah Fate Foundation and CPN Eti Osa, concerned neighbours had called the NGO helpline to come and rescue the victim at Opeyemi Estate, Adeba, off Ibeju-Lekki expressway. .
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“It was heart-breaking when we got to the estate. This woman, who was supposed to be her ‘aunty’, would starve her, beat her black and blue every day. She would use chain to beat her all over according to the victim. .
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In one of the beating sessions, the supposed aunty punched her in the right eye which has turned black. She burnt the poor girl’s shoulder with a hot kettle and hurt her head so bad she had eight stitches. .
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She can’t sit on her buttocks because they hurt badly. The whole estate came out because they were sick of her wickedness. She would cover the girl’s mouth with clothes while beating the daylight out of her. .
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She always slept under the staircase, by the generator and different places in the estate. A neighbour who went to switch off his generator in the midnight saw the girl sleeping on a mat inside the generator room and that is what pushed him to report the case to the authorities,” she said.
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At the conclusion of the case, the suspect, nursing a 9-month-old baby, vowed never to hire an underage again in her life.