Police are investigating a case in which nursemaids at a preschool in Ho Chi Minh City’s Thu Duc District have been accused of frequently abusing and torturing preschoolers. The various types of tortures used by the nursemaids are: beating, strangling, pressing heads on the ground, holding noses with towels, slapping faces, and even holding the children upside down over a barrel of water and threatening to drop them into it.  Such abuse has taken place for a long time at Phuong Anh Private Preschool, located in Hiep Binh Phuoc Ward, Thu Duc District, without the parents’ knowledge, according to locals who reported the case to police. The school, whose manager is Le Thi Dong Phuong, admits children aged 10 months to 4 years at a fee of VND1-1.2 million per preschooler, depending on their age. Currently, there are 22 kids attending, but there was a time when the school received as many as 40 children. Nursemaids as well as Phuong torture the children whenever they refuse to be fed, vomit, or eat and drink slowly.  

Police of Hiep Binh Phuoc Ward, after learning of the torture from locals, recently summoned one of the school’s nursemaids, Nguyen Thi Dieu, for questioning. Speaking with Tuoi Tre on Monday about the case, Tran Thi Uyen Phuong, a lecturer of psychiatry and psychology at the HCMC-based Pham Ngoc Thach Medicine University, provided some possible consequences of such abuse. Abused children usually become depressed, anxious, and stressed. They are easily startled, experience unsound sleeps or nightmares at night, and suffer from anorexia. Physically, abused children often vomit while eating and suffer from headaches, belly pain, and heart palpitations whenever they hear something related to the source of their abuse, the lecturer said.  

This morning Tuoi Tre provided information and video clips about the children abuse by the preschool to the Thu Duc District police.

The police said they have summoned Phuong and Dieu for questioning and they have admitted to their abusing children.

An official of the district police said the case will be handled as a criminal case.