Video recordings that appear to show caregivers physically abusing young children at two daycare centres, one in southern India and another in southeastern Brazil, have prompted criminal investigations and, in the Brazilian case, the death of a suspect. In Bengaluru, police registered a case against five women after footage circulated on WhatsApp allegedly showed toddlers being placed inside a front-loading washing machine, sprayed with a toilet jet, and locked in a bathroom at a crèche operating on the Capgemini technology campus. The company said it was temporarily closing the facility and cooperating with authorities. The five caregivers were taken into custody for questioning under the Juvenile Justice Act, according to local police.

In Cerquilho, São Paulo state, municipal surveillance cameras recorded a daycare worker pushing a six-month-old girl to the floor and, the following day, forcing a cloth into the child’s face. The city government said the employee was immediately removed from duties after the images were reported to the child protection council and police. Brazilian authorities confirmed that the woman was found dead on Wednesday morning, hours after police had requested a court order for her arrest on charges of mistreatment. The circumstances of her death are under investigation.

Separately, Argentine prosecutors in Santiago del Estero province detained a 23-year-old mother after the child’s father submitted videos he said he received via messaging app, which allegedly showed the woman striking and threatening their four-year-old daughter. Medical examiners noted minor injuries on the girl. In a distinct case in Bengaluru, a woman filed a complaint alleging that intimate videos recorded without her consent during a 2022 meeting arranged through a dating app were uploaded to adult websites nearly four years later; police have registered a case and removed the material. Meanwhile, a fact-check by Bangladeshi media established that a widely shared clip of toddlers fighting inside a daycare, presented by several Facebook pages as an incident in Bangladesh, was actually recorded on 22 June at a pre-school in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, Maharashtra, where parents have filed a police complaint against six staff members.

Indian investigators are examining the Bengaluru footage to determine when the alleged abuse occurred and whether more children were affected. In Brazil, authorities continue to probe both the assault on the infant and the death of the former employee. All cases remain in preliminary stages, with formal charges yet to be filed.