/ 1 January 2002

Cambodian mother nails her daughter to the floor

An angry Cambodian mother nailed her daughter’s foot to the bamboo floor of their home because she neglected her household chores, police said on Tuesday.

Mao Savouen used the back of an axe to hammer a five-centimetre nail through her 13-year-old daughter’s right foot as soon as she woke up on the morning of November 20.

”She told us she was angry with her daughter because she didn’t help her with household chores and she spent all day playing useless games with other children,” said Por Mich, police chief of Damrei Chan Khla, a commune in the central Kampong Thom province.

The mother then asked her other children to find a second nail for the left foot but the daughter pulled her right one from the floor and ran to the next-door neighbour for help, said Men Chanthan, a worker for the human rights organization Licadho.

”The mother is too strict,” said Chanthan. ”She cursed her husband and beat her children almost every day.”

However police chief Por Mich said no charges would be laid against the 36-year-old mother of four. She knew she had made a mistake and swore never to hammer a nail into her daughter’s foot again, he said. – Sapa-DPA