“Go ahead and cry,” a woman tells her grandson, a toddler, as his head bobs above the surface of the water inside a concrete tank in her yard.

Then she grabs his tiny body and plunges him underwater, holding him there for 12 seconds. “Are you going to cry again?” she asks after allowing him to resurface.

He grabs onto the ledge to rest. But then his aunt puts aside the laundry she had been hanging nearby and takes over from the grandmother, dunking him again as his arms flail and splash.

The incident, secretly filmed in Yangon by a tenant of the two women, was part of an alleged catalogue of abuse that witnesses say included beatings and depriving the 21-month-old child of drinking water so he had to drink from a toilet.  

It is the latest in a series of cases to come to light in recent years that a top human rights official says reflects a culture of using violence against children in the name of discipline.  

Myint Cho, 50, the child’s grandmother, and Aye Myat Lwin, 23, his aunt, were arrested late last month and charged with attempted murder, which can carry a sentence of up to life in prison.

They were denied bail and sent to Insein prison.

Naing Naing Maw, who filmed two secret videos of the women dunking the child in water, was at first reluctant to report the abuse because she was worried the women would kick her out of the house she rented from them.

‘If we don’t report it, he’ll die’

She tried pleading with them to leave the child be. But she said Myint Cho replied: “The child is stubborn. I just want to sell the child.”

For five months, Naing Naing Maw witnessed them regularly abuse the boy: “They didn’t give water to the child. They didn’t feed him. He drank water from the toilet. And they beat him for that,” she told Myanmar Now.  

Neighbours who witnessed the abuse told Naing Naing Maw they were also reluctant to report it.

Khin Zaw Moe and Aye Mar, a married couple who also rented from Myint Cho, tried reasoning with the women to stop them abusing the boy, but eventually agreed with Naing Naing Maw that they had to approach the authorities.

“I told Ma Naing Naing Maw, ‘Please don’t report it. We will have nowhere to live. And she replied, ‘We have to report it. If not, the child will die. It’s no use reporting when the child is dead,’” Khin Zaw Moe recalled.

Another neighbour who asked not to be named said even now they were too scared to testify on the child’s behalf because they get their water and electricity supply from Myint Cho’s house.  

Naing Naing Maw’s videos played a crucial role in building a case against the two women.

After deciding to report the abuse, she went to a close friend for advice. “Do you want to save a child’s life?” she asked him.

The friend informed the township executive committee of the ruling National League for Democracy party, who advised them to get photos and video recordings of the abuse as evidence.

‘I’ll say he fell’

On the evening of April 20, Naing Naing Maw finally went to the police after filming the women dunking the child in water a second time.

“I’m going to dump him in the tank behind the house,” Myint Cho says at one point in the video. “Then, I’ll say he fell”.

“I thought the child was already dead that night,” said Naing Naing Maw. After they submerged him in the water for the second time that day, she said, “I couldn’t hear the child’s voice.”

She also gave authorities pictures of the child’s injuries, cuts and welts on his body from beatings, that she took when she first moved into the house and was asked to babysit him.

The boy’s case is one of a number that have come to light since 2016, helped by greater access to information and smartphones, in which carers have sought to justify abuse in the name of disciplining children.

In March, an NLD official was accused of beating a 12-year-old girl, a distant relative, and forcing her to work long hours in his home in the Ayeyarwady delta, Myanmar Now reported.

And in April last year a nine-year-old child was tied to a utility pole under the hot sun by an aunt and cousins as punishment for stealing a bike in Pyay township.

U Yu Lwin Aung, a member of the Myanmar National Human Rights Commission, said there was no justification for abusing relatives, husbands or wives in the name of discipline.

He added that a culture of beating children to discipline them still persists in Myanmar despite the existence of laws to punish such abuse.

The 21-month-old boy is now in the care of the Department of Social Welfare and being treated for malnutrition and psychological trauma, said Dr. Kaythi Kyaw, the department’s regional director for Yangon.

Currently, a year and nine month old Mg Chit Min Thu is sheltered at a child care center in Shwegondine Township.

If the boy’s parents want to take the custody of him, she said, they will be assessed for suitability and only allowed to take him if the department deemed that the child would be safe.

The alleged abusers, Myint Cho and Aye Myat Lwin, attended a hearing at the North Okkalapa township court on Friday.