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SINGAPORE – A domestic worker unloaded her stress on a one-month-old baby by hitting his back three times, prompting the baby to cry.
Lana Ngizatul Mona, 26, was jailed for nine months on Wednesday (October 21), after pleading guilty to one count under the Children and Youth Act for her physical abuse of the baby.
Lana, an Indonesian and mother of a six-year-old boy, had been hired by the baby’s mother two months before the incident. He was entrusted to take care of the baby, born on March 8 of this year, and his three siblings, in addition to taking care of household chores.
The baby boy and his mother cannot be named due to a gag order on their identities.
On April 30, the mother was in a bedroom when she heard her baby cry out loud from the living room. The screams made the mother check the CCTV camera installed in the living room.
He found that around 7.37am, the maid was sitting at the dining room table and feeding the baby milk while holding him in her arms. At one point, he hit the baby on the back with his wrist, causing him to cry immediately.
In a video played in court, the maid was seen feeding the baby milk again before quickly striking him on the back with her fist twice. This caused the baby to cry again.
Lana admitted to hitting the baby to vent her stress.
The mother took her son to KK Children’s and Women’s Hospital for a medical examination the same day, and the baby was found with a bruise on his right shoulder, as a result of Lana’s blows. The mother filed a police report the same day.
The prosecution cites the vulnerability of the baby for the duration of the sentence
The prosecution requested at least nine months in jail for Lana, citing the vulnerability of the baby, who was unable to fend for himself.
“Caregivers like the accused must know that any act of abuse will be severely punished when the victim entrusts them with the trust to care for them and their parents,” said Deputy Prosecutor Tan Pei Wei, who noted that the penalty for Lana’s charge it had doubled at the beginning of the year.
“These crimes are often difficult to detect due to the intimacy of the relationship and when they take place in a family environment that other people are not aware of.”
To mitigate, Lana, who was not represented, said she had a six-year-old son to care for and was sorry. Speaking through an interpreter, Lana asked for a light sentence in order to return to her family.
For one count of child abuse, Lana could have been jailed for up to eight years and / or fined up to $ 8,000.
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