Sudden appearance of general body malaise, a series of skin infections followed by other health complications in a three-year-old boy brought about panic and a puzzling reaction to parents of three in Dodoma, not aware that a more shocking surprise was around the corner.
On realising that their kid was an HIV-positive, they soon became suspicious of the doctors’ findings over possibility of the kid catching the mainly inheritable or sexually transmitted disease from the healthy parents, they certainly were.
But their shocking eyebrows raised higher when they discovered it was their housemaid Jane from Turiani in Morogoro Region who was the source of the kid’s fatal disease that they could not help, but brand her paedophile.
The mother fell in a short comma later on hearing Jane’s confession during police interrogations that she would routinely feed the child with porridge mixed with her menstrual blood for motives she never disclosed.
Mwamvita Haule, a Dar es Salaam-based businesswoman and former civil servant who lived next door to the child’s family in Dodoma could not hold back her tears while narrating the 10-year-old episode.
“I don’t want to guess of what might have happened to the kid who would be 13 now, as we parted with the family soon after the incident,” she said.
“Her cruelty is beyond human imagination; I wonder the extent of pain she caused the family who had treated her like their own daughter,” she said demonstrating an impact of the bitter experience left in her.
Ms Haule likened Jane’s cruelty with that of a 22-year-old Ugandan maid, Jolly Tumuhirwe who was jailed for four years in December for committing an “unjustifiable and inexcusable” crime by abusing a toddler under her care.
It was a case that shocked the world that the media described the video footage showing the nanny performing her devilish acts on the toddler as “spine-chilling” and “very disturbing” and the judge describing the crime as “ruthlessness exhibited” on an “innocent, helpless child.”
Seemingly frightened by the horrible experience in keeping nannies, Mama Caroline, an industrial worker living at Kimara Temboni and a mother of three has vowed to never hire any, but wish she could afford sending her last kid to a day-care centre.
“If I had enough money, I would have rather kept my three-year-old child at a day-care centre than running a risk of keeping the kid at the mercy of a house girl,” she said.
Source: Guardian
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