An Arab man in Saudi Arabia is facing charges of forcing his daughter to eat insects and torturing her with hot iron and broom sticks, pushing her to think of committing a suicide many times, the daughter has said.

The unnamed father had treated his daughter savagely since she moved in with him when she was eight years old following the divorce of her Saudi mother and his marriage of another woman, she told the Saudi daily Okaz on Wednesday.

The girl, now 18, had been brought up with her mother in the western town of Madina following the divorce but the father asked her to move in with him in the nearby Red Sea port of Jeddah when she was eight.

Her mother said she did not object to his request and took her daughter to her father, adding that her new husband approved the move.

“My father practiced all types of torture on me, including burning me with a hot iron, hitting me with broom sticks and forcing me to eat insects,” Okaz Arabic language daily quoted the unidentified girl as saying.

“He also used to force me to clean the floor with my tongue and prevented me from performing prayers…..…I had never been able to watch television during my stay there for 10 years…I had always wished to move to an orphanage to escape this life and many times thought of committing a suicide.”

The girl said she saw a gleam of hope when some men proposed to her but added that her father refused them all. “I will never accept to return to live with him again…I only want him to leave me alone and let me live with my mother.”

Okaz said the girl’s father had gone to police and told them his daughter had eloped with her lover before he learned that she fled to her mother.

The mother, in her 30s, said her ex-husband had prevented her from seeing or contacting her daughter for nearly 10 years. She said his new wife had also tortured the girl and encouraged her husband to treat her cruelly.

“I knew about the torture when I visited her school recently and some teachers told me that she always comes to class with bruises on her body,” she said.

“So, I agreed with my daughter on a plan to take her back to my home…she waited for me outside the school and I succeeded in taking her to Madina just before her father came to collect her from school.”

Okaz quoted police spokesman colonel Fahd Al Ghannam as saying the woman and her daughter had filed a case against the father and that authorities in Jeddah are taking procedures to summon him.