A mainland woman was arrested on Tuesday for beating her 7-year-old daughter because she cut her own hair, Judiciary Police (PJ) spokesman Cheong Kam Fai said at yesterday’s regular press conference.
The suspect surnamed Chen, who is in her forties, told the police that she is a businesswoman. The 7-year-old victim is in Primary One at a school in the city centre.
According to Cheong, the Judiciary Police received a call from a staff member of the public Conde de S. Januário Hospital Centre on Monday that a school counsellor accompanied a pupil to the hospital for treatment and reported that the girl had been beaten by her mother on the previous day.
Cheong said that Chen married a local man in the mainland in 2013 and the victim was born in Macau the following year. The victim lived with her parents in the mainland and in 2018, began school in Macau and started to live with Chen’s younger sister who has been looking after her in Macau. The girl only returns to see her parents in the mainland during school holidays.
According to Cheong, the girl went to her family home in the mainland to visit her mother on Sunday. The victim felt that her hair was too long, so she cut it herself. When Chen saw this, she became furious, grabbed a bamboo stick and beat her daughter’s across face and limbs more than 10 times. Chen’s sister discovered the victim’s wounds at night and urged her not to beat the girl, after which she returned to Macau with the victim.
Cheong said the victim went to school as usual on Monday. However, her wounds were still sore and she told her class teacher about the incident. The school counsellor took the girl to the hospital for treatment and called the police. According to Cheong, the girl told the authorities that her mother has been beating her since she was three years old.
According to Cheong, the Public Security Police (PSP) arrested the victim’s mother at the Barrier Gate checkpoint on Tuesday night and notified the Judiciary Police. Chen admitted to the corporal punishment and said that the school complained several times recently about her daughter, and that’s why she had intensified the level of corporal punishment.
Chen was transferred to the Public Prosecutions Office (MP) yesterday, facing a domestic violence charge, according to Cheong.
