Persecutors in Dong Thap province have just filed charges against a Vietnamese-Taiwanese mother and her husband for torturing their 9-month-old daughter to allegedly drive demons and bad luck away
Nguyen Thi Xuan Lan, 30 and her de facto husband Le Thanh Tam, 35 were charged with “deliberating causing injuries” to Nguyen Nhu Y.
Y is Lan’s daughter with her former de facto husband Leo Chin Seo whom she met in Taiwan after leaving her official Taiwanese husband.
After she returned to Vietnam, she met Tam, who is already married.
The two then lived together in the southern province of Dong Thap and as the baby Y often cried, Tam claimed she was possessed by demons and had to be ‘treated’ by him.
Lan agreed and on August 14, 2010, Tam used his chin to press hard into Y’s two cheeks while his hands squeezed tight onto his step daughter’s mouth and face.
Meanwhile, Lan used her cell phone to videotape the scene. This mobile was later seized.
After watching the clip, Le Xuan Lang, a local police chief said “It’s heart-wrenching to see images of the child being beaten and tortured in such a cruel manner”.
Y was beaten other times and her body sustained bruises, many lesions and scorch marks.
Doctors concluded that Y suffered a 25% permanent injury.
Although Lan has Taiwanese-Chinese nationality, she did not ask Chinese or Taiwanese representative offices to intervene in this case.
Y is now in the care of Lan’s aunt.
Case file
On September 16 last year, Y was brought to a local hospital with multiple injuries, following a tip-off from locals.
According to Thanh Nien, the duo said they beat the girl because she was a source of bad luck for the family. They believed that hitting her would drive any misfortune away.
The girl has bruises all over her body as well as three deep wounds to her left thigh and in the soles of her feet.
“We have concluded that the injuries must have been caused by pressing hot objects to the skin, causing it to burn and blister. The wounds are badly infected and so are difficult to treat,” he said. Dr. Nguyen Van Ve, chief of Trauma and Orthopedic Department
Lan’s father Nguyen van Kiet, said “The baby often cried and her mother would beat her with a wooden stick”.
Neighbors said they heard Y crying and the mother screaming and cursing since but they didn’t know about the abuse, as the girl was kept inside the house at all times.
The neighbors alerted local authorities when they saw bruises on the girl’s body by chance.
The incident has provoked public outrage.
Health workers at Dong Thap General Hospital where Y was beign treated eported that hundreds of people, including other patients’ family members, flocked to Y’s room to confront Lan. As a result, mother and daughter were sent to a restricted area.
In May last year, the Vietnamese public was shocked and angered by a case of child torture in the southern province of Ca Mau where 14-year-old Nguyen Hoang Anh was repeatedly abused by his employers over the course of a year.
The married couple was later sentenced to 23 years in prison each for “deliberately injuring” and “torturing” Anh.
In 2002, Lan married Huang Jun Fang, 47, a Taiwanese.
In early 2003, she left Vietnam to live with her husband in Taiwan where she was unhappy and left Fang to live with another man named Leo Chin Seo.
In March 2009, she was pregnant by Seo and returned to live with her parents in Vietnam in Long Hau district.
In December 2009, Y was born.
During the time in Vietnam, Lan met and lived with Tam.
source) http://www.dztimes.net/post/social/couple-charged-for-torturing-9-month-old-daughter.aspx
