Mother, Daughter Arrested For Torturing And Starving Two Stepchildren

A mother and her daughter have been jailed by the Bauchi State Police Command for reportedly mistreating her two stepchildren to barbaric torture, abuse, and starvation with the father's permission.

Authorities from the Township Police Station arrested the perpetrators after a complaint of mistreatment was made against them by a non-governmental organization, Syndicate in Supporting Women and Children Initiative (SISWACHI).

Abubakar Yakubu, 5, and Sumaiya Yakubu, 3, are currently being cared for at Tashan Babiye Primary Health Centre, Bauchi.

The children's parents had split, putting them in the hands of their stepmother and father, according to reports.

Habiba Sani Khalid, the children's mother, who lives in the Bakin Kura neighborhood of Bauchi city, expressed her outrage over her two children's alleged abuse by their stepmother while at the hospital.

Habiba was uninformed of her children's welfare until a few days ago, and that her daughter Sumaiya nearly died of abuse at the hands of her stepmother.

“It was their father that later called me on phone and asked me to come and pick my children,” she said. “He said, if I didn’t carry them, he would not bother about their plight because he has other children he cares for,” she added.

Habiba initially declined to pick up the children, so the husband sent the daughter to her mother. “I realized that she was staggering. She asked me for food. I also saw wounds of beating and burns on her body," Habiba said.

She also said that the stepmother starved the children and mistreated them. In one instance, the 3-year-old girl was being thrown firewoods by her 18-year-old half-sister as instructed by the stepmother.

Habiba reportedly claimed that the older half-sister used to throw flaming firewoods on Sumaiya's back when she was made to clean her feces and that the stepmother arbitrarily assaulted both Sumaiya and her five-year-old brother, Abubakar Yakubu, while denying them food.

Hajiya Binta Adamu Ibrahim, a human rights activist and the Executive Director of SISWACHI, received a call from the organization's headquarters in Abuja to engage in the case.

According to Binta, the organization reported the incident to the Bauchi municipal police station, which resulted in the arrest of the victims' father, stepmother, and older half-sister.

The youngsters were starving and emaciated when they were taken to the hospital, according to Mark Garba, the doctor in charge of their treatment. He added, however, that their conditions had vastly improved now.