Woman seen abusing autistic boy, seven, in viral video
His mother says woman is an applied behaviour specialist who had been working with him for three months
A six-minute video showing a woman abusing an autistic child with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been making the rounds on social media platforms since Tuesday.
His mother, Madam Safirah Azmi, 30, who posted two clips, told The New Paper yesterday that the raw footage - filmed on March 29 last year - was 40 minutes long.
The housewife said: "I couldn't bring myself to watch the full thing... to hear my son crying and pleading."
She said the woman is an applied behaviour specialist who had been working with her seven-year-old son for three months before the incident.
The post has received over 2,700 likes, 1,400 comments and 7,800 shares on Facebook as at 10pm yesterday.
In one of the clips, the woman is seen pushing her right hand aggressively against the child's face, stuffing a finger into his mouth.
The boy, who Madam Safirah said is non-verbal, was crying helplessly.
Minister for Social and Family Development Desmond Lee said in a Facebook post on Tuesday that he was alarmed by what he saw. He added that the matter will be looked into thoroughly.
Madam Safirah, who has two other children aged six and three, said that the boy ran out of the room looking distressed when the session ended that evening.
That made her husband check the footage from a closed-circuit television that they had installed to monitor his weekly therapy sessions.
She made a police report that night and added that the case was closed in August last year with the woman given a verbal warning.
SACKED
Told she was an employee at a special education school at the time of the incident,The New Paper sent queries to the school. The school's clinical director Zhang Liyuan responded, saying the woman was sacked two days after the report was made.
He said: "We are sorry for what happened to the child and understand the pain his family feels. We are ready to cooperate with relevant bodies for further investigations."
On why she had come forward only now, Madam Safirah said: "I have exhausted all means trying to be heard... of going back and forth with the police on this case... I am just a mother desperately seeking justice for her son."
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