A 14-year-old Phnom Penh boy returning a plastic bracelet that a neighbor girl had left outside during her bath raped the 5-year-old in her temporary home on the edge of a housing development while both their parents were away at work, police said.
The girl’s mother returned home on Monday morning to find her daughter in tears and the boy leaving the house in Chroy Changva district, Prek Liep commune police chief Mech Sarei said on Tuesday.
“The victim’s mother asked the boy in front her house, ‘Why did you go inside my house?’” Mr. Sarei said.
The boy responded that he was returning the bangle.
But when the mother questioned her bleeding, naked daughter, “she realized that the boy walking out of her house had raped her daughter,” he said. The woman immediately filed a complaint with commune police and took her daughter to Phnom Penh Referral Hospital, Mr. Sarei said.
The boy confessed during questioning on Tuesday afternoon to raping the girl and was expected to appear at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court today, deputy district police chief Ek Sereyvuth said.
