Madam threatened to throw away my corpse if I die

Fifteen-year-old Linda Agidi from Odu Local Government Area, Benue State, says she can no longer endure the alleged assaults she is going through in the hands of her boss, Mrs. Toyin Adeyemi.

The housemaid, who dropped out of school when she was in primary five, lives with the boss on Alade-Dada Close, Sanni Balogun, in the Abule-Egba area of Lagos State.

 She said Adeyemi had frustrated her attempts to leave the house by taking away from her the phone numbers of family members, including that of one Mama Ade, who brought her to the woman.

 The minor, who barely speaks English, spoke with Saturday PUNCH on Wednesday, through an interpreter, who understands her indigenous language.

 Agidi said the scars on her breast and chest were effects of the constant beating to which Adeyemi allegedly subjected her.

 She said she was coming out of the kitchen with hot water sometime in May when the woman collided with her, spilling the water onto her breast.

 “Madam (Adeyemi) did not say sorry. Instead, she said if I die, she would put my corpse in her car boot and throw it away. It took about a month before the wound healed. I got here three months ago through Mummy Ade, a relative, but I am fed up.

 “Madam beats me any time I make a slight mistake and has turned me to a slave. There was a day she woke me up around 3am and put a generator on my head to punish me. She threatened to pour hot water on my body again if it fell.

 “I want to go back home, the suffering is too much but she had collected the phone numbers of my people from me,” Agidi said.

 She stated that she dropped out of school and enrolled for tailoring apprenticeship because her mother could no longer afford to pay her fees.

 Agidi explained that at a point in her apprenticeship, her master requested training fee, which made her mother decide that she should come to Lagos to work.

 She said, “I was brought to Lagos with the hope that I would gather some money from being a housemaid and go back to the village. But since I came here three months ago, madam has not paid me a dime. She always complains that she had paid the person that brought me in exchange for my service.”

 A resident, who spoke with our correspondent about Agidi’s plight, said Adeyemi’s neighbours were aware of the girl’s plight but were afraid to confront the woman.

 The resident said, “I notice she is always crying and shouting almost every morning and night when her boss is around. There was this particular day that I noticed she was always tying a cloth around her neck. I asked her why and she showed me where her boss poured hot water on her breast.

 “I have called an organisation handling domestic violence. The person promised to come but he has not.”

 When contacted on the telephone, Adeyemi challenged our correspondent about how he got to know about the incident and declined to react on the housemaid’s allegation.

She said, “This man do your work, I am doing my work. Let the story come out, I won’t react; you are a ghost worker with Saturday PUNCH. Go and do your work and get off my line. ”

Our correspondent contacted the Office of the Public Defender, Lagos to find out what can be done on the girl’s case.

Spokesperson for the agency, Mr.Adeoba Adeniji-Adele, promised that the agency would take appropriate actions on the case.