JEDDAH, 17 September 2006 — A seven-year-old girl is in a coma after her stepmother smashed her head causing a severe injury.

The girl now lies in the intensive care unit (ICU) of Arar Central Hospital and a neurosurgeon is following her case, a hospital official told Arab News yesterday.

“She is slowly improving but the injury is still severe,” said the source who did not want to be named, adding that the girl, who has been identified by the name Balqees, will most likely spend the rest of her life mentally ill or paralyzed.

Balqees, who is Bahraini-Syrian, was brought to the hospital in Arar, located about 50 km to the south of the border with Iraq in the northern frontier region, at approximately 3 a.m. on Monday by a female relative who was not the girl’s mother.

Police have detained the father and stepmother and an investigation is ongoing. The stepmother, who is being charged with inflicting the injury, would face death penalty “if the girl were to die from her injuries.”

“Child abuse is a serious crime (under Shariah) and should be punished accordingly,” said Suhaila Hammad of the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR).

Balqees’ mother, who is remarried, visited her three days after she was admitted to the hospital and is now asking for the custody of her daughter. Women who divorce and re-marry are not eligible for custody of the children from the previous marriage under Islamic law. The mother failed to gain custody before she remarried.

According to Hammad, abuse was the norm in Balqees’ home. She said the stepmother previously used a hot knife to burn the child’s eyes and face and broke her hand. Following that incident, Balqees’ mother called for her private right to custody.

The stepmother reportedly fled after that attack and a judge sentenced her in absentia to five months in prison. A paternal aunt was granted custody, but eventually Balqees ended up back in her father’s home.

The source at the hospital says that Balqees’ relatives have visited her rarely even as she lies in a coma in the ICU. “Only people at the hospital who heard about her case visit her,” said the hospital source.