A 40-year-old woman, Mrs. Deborah Gabriel, who molested her eight-year-old housemaid, Glory Ugbon, by putting pepper in the girl’s eyes and private part, has been arrested and detained by the Lagos state Police Command.

The Punch reports that the housemaid was brutalized by her boss after she allegedly stole a plate of rice when she was hungry.

According to the report, Glory started living with the trader as a housemaid since November, 2015.

Deborah had visited the victim’s parents in Akwa Ibom State and sought to take her along with her to Lagos state, ‘to take care of her.’

Glory said her madam had promised to enroll her in a school and her sister also assured her that Mrs Deborah would treat her well.

“I was in Primary 3 before I left my parents in my village in Akwa Ibom.

“The woman is not related to us. I work at home all the time but sometimes when she is not happy with me, she beats me till I cannot walk, and leaves scars all over my body,” Glory said.

Following the brutal assault on the child, the co-tenants of Deborah in the Surulere area of the state decided to take action to prevent the woman from killing the girl. When the pain became unbearable, the neighbours raised the alarm.

The neighbours reportedly alerted child rights activists, who promptly notified the police when the little girl would not stop screaming during the last assault in the course of the week.

The brutalized girl was taken to the Aguda Police Division, Surulere, Lagos along with Deborah who was arrested.

Narrating her ordeal, Glory said she was eating at the backyard of their house, when her madam accused her of stealing food. I was very hungry when my madam caught me eating and became furious.

“When she was tired of beating me, she forced my legs apart and rubbed some pepper in my eyes and my bum bum (vagina),” she said.

“Since November that she brought me to Lagos, she has not talked about any school for me,” Glory said.

On her part, Deborah explained that “something just came over me” when she tortured the girl.

She said, “Please, help me. I am so sorry for what I did. I know it is wrong but I just could not control my anger. I promise to take care of her and give her adequate treatment now. I am so sorry for what I did.”

Founder and Coordinator of the Jeshabel Touch-A-Heart Foundation, Mrs. Favour Benson, who took up the girl’s case, said at the moment, Glory is being given refuge in a state government home but that effort would be made to contact her parents so that they could take custody of her.

According to her, “The girl’s case was particularly annoying because the woman did not express any remorse for the way she tortured the girl. Is it by begging?

“With the kind of scars on the girl’s body within the six months she had been with her, it is clear she had been torturing the girl as soon as she started living with her.

“She said she tortured the girl out of frustration and she told us that the girl was always stealing food. We asked her if the girl was stealing anything else, she said no, that it was just food. If Glory was not constantly hungry, she would not steal food,” Mrs Favour added.

Confirming the arrest, the state police spokesperson, SP Dolapo Badmos said the woman was in police custody at Aguda Police Division in Surulere and would be charged to court.

“Plans are being made to send the girl back to her parents in Akwa Ibom state,” Badmos said.