A 37-year-old Indonesian domestic worker has been sentenced to four weeks’ imprisonment, suspended for one year, after pleading guilty to one count of child abuse at the West Kowloon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday.
The defendant admitted that she had pulled the hair of a two-year-old boy under her care at her employer’s home on April 8, news website HK01.com reported.
The child abuse came to light when the employer, said to be a female police sergeant, noticed on surveillance camera footage that the worker pulled the boy’s hair when playing at home.
The domestic worker has taken care of the boy and his twin sister since they were three months old.
The worker pleaded for leniency in court, claiming that she was playing with the twins at the time, and that the boy pulled her hair first. She wanted to let the boy know how he had hurt her and to teach him a lesson. This, she alleged, was why she pulled his hair, Headline Daily reported.
The magistrate said the domestic worker had over-reacted. As the twins had been under the worker’s care since they were three months old, she should understand that two-year-olds were only having fun when they were playing.