Happenings

It took a while to rouse eight-year-old Sophia Shaidu, as she lay on her stomach on a bed in the children’s ward of the Aniyun Hospital, Gbagada, Lagos. The nurse who had taken our correspondent in to see her was happy that the girl could at least fall asleep after days of excruciating pains that kept her awake. “Some people are here to talk to you,” she was told. Sophia spoke only Ebira language. She does not understand English; not even pidgin English because her guardian did not enrol her in school after she was brought to Lagos to work as a housemaid about three years ago. So, our correspondent was only able to speak to her through an interpreter. One thing was immediately clear when Sophia finally sat up with a considerable pain: dark marks dotted her body from her neck to her ankle. She hung her left arm awkwardly, which made her flinch at the nurse’s touch. “We are planning to do an X-ray on the arm. It’s likely she has a fracture there,” the nurse said. “The marks on m