19-yr-old woman, friend held after scalding daughter with hot water for amusement

Wednesday 29th April, 12:20 PM JST

TOKYO —

Police said Wednesday that a 19-year-old woman and her girl friend were arrested for assault, accused of burning her 2-year-old daughter by putting her feet in a baby bath filled with hot water in their Adachi Ward apartment.

According to police, the woman and her friend, also 19, put the child in the bath on March 12 after a steamed dumpling they gave her was too hot, and she spat it out in a way that reminded the girls of a TV show where people were forced to eat hot foods. The women told police they remembered another show where people were forced to sit in a hot bath, and decided to put the child in the baby bath, which they filled to a depth of about 8 centimeters with water estimated to have been more than 60 degrees.

The women are suspected of putting both of the child’s feet in the water for up to a minute, inflicting burns expected to take two months to heal, and also pouring hot water over the child’s shoulders.

Police said the women took the child to a hospital after her skin peeled off, and told staff the child had been scalded by hot water in a saucepan. Staff suspected their story was not true and contacted a children’s welfare office, which in turn called police.

The women have admitted to burning the child and told police that watching her crying and yelling was amusing. They said they did it as the child never did as she was told, so they decided to punish her, and enjoyed watching her rolling around on the floor. The mother also has an 8-month old boy, and he was taken to hospital in February with injuries to his head after he was swung around by his ankles.

Kyodo News Service

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Latest 15 of 88 Total Comments Show All

usaexpat at 11:38 PM JST - 30th April

Argument for birth control and abortion my friends. This b*tch got pregnant at 16 by my math and had a child at 17. She proceeded to squeeze out another one 1.5 years later and obviously can't care for either one. Be more concerned about the type of people breeding than the overall birth rate. My sympathy to the girl, hopefully she and her brother will be permanently removed from the home.
mirkwood at 12:04 AM JST - 1st May

Sick b*tches!! Hope they get what they deserved rotting in jail Pity the kids though. What had the kids done to deserve such a mother??
cuddles2009 at 02:46 AM JST - 1st May

please sterlize both of them, so in the future they have no more potential victims to terrorise.

Then lock them away to live the hell they have inflicted on this defenceless little girl.

Where were the Fathers of these children, they had fun with these (sickos) and then ran off, Government also stand up in this case, support and training on how to be a parent is despartely needed here.

Again children suffer.
ebisen at 09:17 AM JST - 1st May

Pleaseeeee do the same to her also - poor children
greentea3 at 02:24 PM JST - 1st May

the mom has a mental problem, dude
kamakuradude at 07:41 PM JST - 1st May

Child Welfare Services should be held partially responsible for not taking the children away when she was found to have swung the younger one around by the ankles. Come on Japan, be a leader in good sense. Use the Cartoon museum money to take care of your citizens (especially the innocent little ones in this dwindling population).
czykent at 05:53 PM JST - 2nd May

sadist mom...what is this world coming to?
aikisako at 02:08 PM JST - 3rd May

these women must have poison in their veins instead of blood.
steventemplar at 02:50 PM JST - 3rd May

Seeing Patrick Smash's comment about no system of adoption for unwanted children, I figured I have to comment on my own experience. Actually, there is a waiting list (in Aichi) for adoption. I know because my wife and I were on it for two years before being able to adopt. Our situation is that we are both professionals and we went through a series of interviews in order to qualify to adopt. We were offered an infant who was abandoned. I won't go into the horrible details about how the infant was abandoned (not life threatening), but as we just has a second child, the adoption officer asked if we could pass, as there were a long list of parents with no children. After a lot of discussion between my wife and I, we decided to pass and let the infant be raised by another family. However, to this day, I think about the infant and wonder how it is.

The adoption system is full of 2 parent families wanting to adopt. At least that is my experience. When we had to go to an orphanage as part of our interview, we played with many children. But these children were not qualified for adoption because their parent(s) did not give up guardianship of them. SO, these children spend their time in an institution being raised by social workers rather than a mom and dad who want children. However, from my 4 visits to the orphanges, I was impressed by the care and love the children got from the staff. I was then sure that the kids are getting better care in the institution than they would have got with their biological parent(s).

So, in short (not really), from my experience, there is a system for little victims of abuse.
im3ngs at 12:01 AM JST - 4th May

I have no words.
flammenwerfer at 10:00 AM JST - 4th May

I have two words - Tubal ligation. She should never be allowed to "breed" again and her two children should be removed from her demonic presence.
JoeBigs at 11:10 AM JST - 4th May

The child is 2 and they decided to hurt her to teach her a lesson???? What the f'ing hell were these two numbnutz thinking? They should get tossed into hot boiling water so they can feel what the child went through!

Some folks do not deserve to have children.....They scar the children for life, no one knows what else they did to the child...
sageb1 at 01:46 PM JST - 4th May

please send them to America to wreak havok on the world's greatest threat to democracy and common decency called Houston. j-k

This is proof teenaged pregnancy is one of the signs of immaturity and selfishness.

Prison is too good for them.

The gossip rags should interview them, and expose them for the children they are.
ca1ic0cat at 02:54 AM JST - 6th May

This is just sick. You have to wonder about the intellegence of TWO women who agree to do something like this. Both deserve a long time in prison to grow up a bit.

There is a lot to be said for birth control. Too bad it's not promoted very well.
michiyokuchiki at 02:12 AM JST - 7th May

this is one of the sickest things i have ever read. it made me ill. poor little girl.