Two more people have been arrested in Papua New Guinea in connection with an alleged kidnapping.
Photo: RNZ Pacific/ Koroi Hawkins
Tania George, 12, was rescued from a house in Chimbu province just before Christmas, where it's believed she was enslaved for three years.
Last week, brother and sister John and Soti Nari were arrested.
The Post Courier reports Mr Nari's mother, Nita Nari, has now been taken into custody, along with a person believed to have harboured the suspects following the girl's rescue.
Police are reportedly searching for Mr Nari's wife and father.
A social worker, Jean Kupo, from Chimbu's Kundiawa Hospital said the girl was tortured and forced to work in the garden of her captors.
"They were giving her child labour. She was doing all the gardening for the family. They were releasing her in the early hours of the morning, like 6am and she goes to the garden and she comes back very late," she said.
"People don't see her, they make sure that no one sees her... When she comes back from the gardening she's locked in the house.
"When she doesn't work because she's tired they get mad and sometimes they don't give her food...They torture her...She's got scars from her head down to her feet."