A 37-year-old Nigerian migrant was arrested in the Italian city of Parma after allegedly sexually abusing an eight-year-old girl in the bathroom of his shop.
The Nigerian has been placed under house arrest following his initial arrest by Italian Carabinieri in response to allegations levelled by the child’s mother, a close friend of the man accused, Il Giornale reports.
According to investigators, the woman was well acquainted with the Nigerian for professional reasons and had previously allowed her daughter in the shop with the man without problems in the past.
The child claims that the man had sexually abused her on three separate occasions and that the man had threatened the child in attempts to force her not to speak about what had happened to her.
Alfonso D’Avino of the prosecutor’s office said that the child was able to describe in great detail what the Nigerian man had done to her.
The sex attacks were “carried out suddenly without the knowledge of the minor, so as to be able to prevent the manifestation of dissent and in any case continued to perform sexual acts even in the face of dissent manifested by the child,” according to investigators.
The case is just the latest involving migrants sexually abusing underage children since the height of the migrant crisis in 2015.
In Italy, there have been several cases including a young boy who was raped by a pair of Pakistani migrants at a train station in Brindisi last year.
Sex attacks on children have not been limited to Italy either. In Spain, a Moroccan man was arrested in June of last year after allegedly sexually abusing six children after he had followed them to the doorways of their homes.
In Germany, an 18-year-old Afghan asylum seeker was arrested in the city of Esslingen for allegedly raping a 13-year-old only a month after he has been released from prison after serving time for other sex offences.