A 27-year-old woman was arrested in New Zealand on Sunday for hiding a 2-year-old girl in her suitcase in the bus’s luggage compartment. The child was overheated but otherwise unharmed. The woman has been charged with assault and neglect.
The girl was discovered when the bus driver made a stop at Kaiwaka and looked in the luggage compartment. There, he saw one of the suitcases moving, writes the New Zealand police. When he opened the suitcase and saw a two-year-old girl, he called the police.
The girl was “very hot” but otherwise appeared physically unharmed. She has been taken to the hospital, where she will receive further medical examination. “We would like to express our gratitude to the bus driver,” the police write. “He saw that something was wrong and took immediate action. This prevented a much worse outcome.”
The police have arrested the woman whose suitcase it was. She is charged with “assault and neglect of a child”. The police are not disclosing whether she is also the child’s mother. Further investigation is ongoing.
The woman appears in court on August 4.