A Filipina domestic worker was sentenced to four weeks jail on Monday at Tuen Mun Magistrates Court for hitting a three-year-old boy under her care after the incident was caught on camera.
Eden Inabiohan, a first-time worker and single mother with a young son pleaded guilty to four counts of “ill-treatment of a child”, sunwebhk.com reported.
A duty lawyer asked for a lenient sentence, saying the child was found to have no injury when doctors at Tuen Mun Hospital examined him.
The defendant was said to be remorseful and had been used to life in the Philippines where parents can spank their children when they misbehave.
Magistrate Jacky Ip reminded the defendant, saying: “But this in Hong Kong, where assaulting a child is a serious offense.” He gave only the standard discount of a third of the prescribed sentence for her guilty plea.
The defendant had been working for the employer since February last year.
On November 26, the female employer reported to police that her son had been assaulted by the domestic worker a day earlier.
Investigators who reviewed surveillance camera footage in the employer’s home saw the defendant slap the boy’s hands and bottom, then hit him on his bottom with a broom as she lost her temper when she heard the boy use foul language after she scolded him for scattering food.