MONROVIA – A representative aspirant in Bong County, Mr. Camel Samatuah, is being sought after for allegedly mercilessly whipping his 14-year-old nephew, Prince Samatuah. It is said that Prince came to live with his uncle, who resides in Worwhen Community on Capitol By-Pass Monrovia, to go to school.
By Mae Azango, [email protected]
As a result of this severe flogging, Prince escaped from the house last evening to seek refuge at the Women and Children Division of the Liberia National Police (LNP) Headquarters, which is within the same vicinity.
With a bruised backside and unable to sit, Prince told this newspaper that his uncle used an electric wire to beat him because their neighbor had accused him of toileting in his (neighbor’s) garden.
“I am living in the house with my uncle but he told me not to use the bathroom in the house, so whenever I am jammed, I can go in the dump-pile to pupu. So our neighbor told him I pupued in his garden and I did not even pupu that day. My uncle locked the door and started beating me. He beat me u til he is tired. When he gets tire, he would go outside and rest then come back and continue beating me. He said he was going to beat me until the next morning. So, when he went to take bath, I climbed in the ceiling and jump down and ran to the police station women and children. They called my uncle to take me to the clinic before talking the case,” Prince narrated.
Prince said has father sent him to live with his uncle to go to school 10 months ago. But when he arrived in Monrovia, his uncle never registered him, but instead he cleans the yard, fetches water and does other works around the house.
“I told the police people my uncle can always beat me and I can’t eat sometimes. I can sleep on the cold floor, because there is no mattress, so I want to go back to Bong County to my people. It will be better I go back and not be going to school than to be in Monrovia and not going to school,” he said.
All efforts to get Prince’s uncle proved futile; he was not home when this newspaper visited twice, and neither did he answer his phone. But the Women and Children Unit at the LNP acknowledged receiving report from the child.
Madam Madea Chea, investigator at the LNP Women and Children Domestic Unit, said she was on duty the night the child went there and because of his bad condition she and a church brother of the uncle took him to a clinic and the church brother paid the expenses.
“The case is pending until after the child’s three-day treatment because the child’s health comes first. The child says he wants to go back to his people in Bong County but when I went to the uncle’s house he has been out since Wednesday. He called me on a private number today [Thursday] to say he is making arrangements to contact the child’s parents to come for the child. I will make sure the child is taken back,” she assured.
The officer said she entrusted the child with the neighbor. This neighbor will continue taking Prince to the clinic until his treatment is complete and the child will remain with the neighbor until his uncle can get his people to come for him.
Prince is one of several children who are taken from rural Liberia under pretext of going to school, but instead many of the children end up selling in the streets, accompany blind people to beg for alms without going to school, while others are violated and end up living on the streets.
According to UNICEF 2022 report, Children in Liberia are subjected to the worst forms of child labor, including in forced domestic work. Children also perform dangerous tasks in the production of rubber and the mining of gold and diamonds
Session 2.3 B of the Decent Work Act says, “Without limiting the scope of the preceding provision, the following forms of work by children are absolutely prohibited: i) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom, and forced or compulsory labor,”
Speaking to this paper, neighbor Okey Davies; said Mr. Samatuah is always in the habit of severely beating children living with him, for which another child living with him, called his people to come for him.
“A teenaged girl who once lived with him was violated and allegedly impregnated by him, but he and the girl’s family did it the ‘family way’ and compromised the case. This man and I are in the same church and his constant habit of beating children living with him has caused our pastor to warn him to desist but he still does it. He does not feed this boy most often, he would buy L$150 food from the cookshop for the child in the morning and that will be the only food the child would eat the entire day. Sometimes it’s the neighbor who can give the child food when his uncle is not around,” said Davies.
Davies acknowledged that the child sleeps on the cold floor in a small sitting place for which sometimes gets wet and colder but the child still sleeps there.
“Suppose this child gets sick with pneumonia or cholera? Because he even allows the boy to drink the unsafe well water used for washing, while he drinks the sachets water. We the neighbors can see how this man ill-treats this child. So, I am speaking out now for this child to go back to his people before something bad happens to him and people start saying why the neighbors could not report,” said Davies.
According to Mr. Adama K. Dempster, Secretary General of the Civil Society Human Rights Platform of Liberia, it is a form of human rights abuse against the child.
“The action of such an individual, who deprives a child of safe drinking water, food, and the right to education, is inhuman and cruel. Such person should be dealt with according to the law,” said Dempster.
While Prince waits to be taken back to Bong County, the uncle who did not sleep at home last evening has refused to show up, but neighbors believe he is hiding to avoid the police.