Camera catches man kicking 6-year-old boy in his genitals

The boy’s parents filed the complaint after viewing camera footage from their apartment complex in Dai Mo Ward, Bac Tu Liem District, media reports said.

The footage provided by the complex’s management board shows two men entering an elevator at around 9 p.m. Wednesday. The elevator had three young boys and a little girl when the men entered.

One of the men kicks the 6-year-boy’s genitals, before seeming to wave his leg close to the boy’s face. The elevator door opens soon after, but no one gets in or out. The man can be seen apparently gesturing to the boy with his hand, saying something. The boy shrinks away from the man into a corner of the elevator. The released footage does not go further, according to a video shared by Vietnam Television (VTV).

The boy only told his parents about the incident the next morning.

His mother said she was horrified on seeing the footage. "His actions were inexcusable and have hurt my son mentally," she said, as cited by Tuoi Tre newspaper.

The man’s identity is not yet known. Apartment managers have said they are cooperating with the Dai Mo Ward People's Committee and local police to identify him.

A representative of the Dai Mo police department said they have figured out the apartment from which the man walked out. The owner of the apartment has said the man was a guest, not a resident of the apartment. The apartment owner has also said that the man had consumed alcohol earlier.

Last August, Nguyen Huu Linh, a retired deputy chief prosecutor in the central city of Da Nang, was sentenced to a year and six months in jail for molesting a five-year-old girl in a Saigon apartment elevator that April.

About 2,000 cases of child abuse are recorded in Vietnam every year, according to the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs.