It has been around a month since she was admitted to Dhaka Medical College Hospital. She was then just skin and bone.
Many were shocked to see her. Even her younger brother used to be scared of coming to her as she used to look frightening with injuries all over her body. No longer.
Aduri, a child worker from a Dhaka household, had been reduced to skin and bones, giving her the look of a living skeleton. She had been found on a pile of garbage in Mirpur’s Pallabi on Sept 23.
The frail 11-year old girl bore blade slashes all over her body. Her back, belly and chest had been branded with hot iron.
Her employer Naorin Jahan Nodi was arrested and put in remand for torturing the child maid.
This reporter went to follow up on her condition.
DMCH’s One-stop Crisis Centre Coordinator Dr Bilkis Begum asked an office assistant to bring Aduri to her office but she was found nowhere, and after waiting for 20-25 minutes, this reporter asked, “Where is Aduri?”
“I am Aduri,” a little girl said loudly. “Can’t you recognise me? It was me Nodi had dumped in a dustbin.”
She has almost recovered from the injuries her employer had inflicted on her over a month.
She wore a red point on the forehead, a nose ring and a pair of earrings. She even had her nails polished. She was looking quite jolly.
Bilkis Begum said Aduri loved to wear a red point, nose ring and earrings; so she had been given these ornaments.
But she could not wear any bangle as her hands still hurt. “I feel hurt when I wear bangles, so I do not wear them.
Asked when Aduri would be released, Bilkis Begum said, “She will be released next week, but the date is not yet fixed.”
“If Aduri faces any trouble when at her village home, she will be brought back to Dhaka and kept in a government shelter home.”
Words of torture are still fresh in her mind, though she has already started recovering from her injuries. She described the ordeal she went through when asked about it.
“Nodi used to beat me and keep me starved. I had no strength because I was starving. Eventually, she dumped me in the garbage can.”
Asked if she wanted to go home, she said, “I am dying to go home. My brothers will go fishing in the sea after cuddling me.”
Aduri hails from Jainakathi village in Patuakhali district.
Her mother Shafia, 60, has been living with her nine children at the village since her father Abdul Khaleq died three years ago.
Panna, Aduri’s younger brother, had come to see her at the hospital. He was shocked to see her because she was then just bone and skin.
Aduri says, “Panna is not scared of seeing me anymore. He now wants to play with me.”
Source: Bd news24