Battered girl sues father, stepmother (Cebu City, Phillipines)

UNNAMED DAD and his stepmonster wife essentially tortured this girl between 2005 and 2008. But the girl is fighting back and suing them for child abuse.

http://globalnation.inquirer.net/cebudailynews/news/view/20090706-214079/Father-stepmother-face-14-counts-of-child-abuse

BATTERED GIRL SUES PARENTS
Father, stepmother face 14 counts of child abuse

By Ador Mayol Cebu Daily News
First Posted 08:41:00 07/06/2009 Filed Under: Crime

For beatings so horrific that a 13-year-old girl endured at home, her father and stepmother now face child abuse charges before the Cebu Regional Trial Court.

Jasmine (not her real name) was found taking refuge in a church in Labangon, Cebu City in late 2008 with bruise marks in many parts of her body.

The discovery eventually led to her to getting the help she needed and the filing last Friday of charges against her parents.

The case of Jasmine, who was raised in a middle class family, is one of the few complaints of parental abuse that reach the court. Her tale of abuse shocked church workers who found her.

Jasmine’s body had been sprayed with insecticide and bathed in rugby. She was kicked and whipped at home with a belt buckle on the breast, tied with a belt in her neck while being pulled around, made to go outside their house naked, was almost hit by the car driven by her stepmother, choked, mauled until she lost consciousness, and had her toenails pounded with a hammer.

These were just some of the "painful" experiences that the girl went through over three years from 2005 until September 2008, when her father dropped her off the street to fend for herself, according to the charge documents submitted in court by government prosecutors.

Cebu City Prosecutor Nicolas Sellon approved the filing of charges.The father was slapped with five counts of violating Section 10, Paragraph A of Republic Act 7610 or the Anti-child Abuse Law. The stepmother faces nine counts .

The prosecutors asked the court to issue an arrest warrant against the couple. Bail was recommended at P80,000 for each count.

Section 10 states that "any person who shall commit any other acts of child abuse, cruelty or exploitation or to be responsible for other conditions prejudicial to the child's development including those covered by Article 59 of Presidential Decree No. 603, as amended, but not covered by the Revised Penal Code, as amended, shall suffer the penalty of prision mayor in its minimum period” or 12 years.

The last act of abuse came when her father dumped her on the street.

The father drove her to the Redemptorist Church in Cebu City and asked her to get down from the car saying: "Go live your own life. I don't want anything to do with you anymore." The girl walked through the streets until she found herself at the Archdiocesan Shrine of the Our Lady of Lourdes Parish in Labangon, Cebu City.

On Sept. 9, 2008, Jasmine was found by volunteer church workers. Her lips and mouth were swollen. She had rashes all over her body, a swollen foot and a burn mark in her left palm.

Jasmine asked church officials not to send her back home.A volunteer worker, in her affidavit, said the girl was so scared and said that her parents would just make her rest for three days to allow her wounds to heal before she would again be beaten up.

Her parents went looking for her but parish priest Joel Jurao decided to bring the child to her grandmother in Iloilo, as requested by Jasmine. The girl now stays there.