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NIGERIA - CHILDREN ABUSED, ACCUSED
OF WITCHCRAFT - GIRLS
Two Nigeria Children Accused of Witchcraft
By Christian Purefoy, CNN
August 28, 2010
Akwa Ibom state, Nigeria (CNN) -- Just
after midnight, the pastor seized a woman's forehead with his large hand and
she fell screaming and writhing on the ground. "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
shouted the worshippers, raising their hands in the air.
Pastor Celestine Effiong's
congregants are being delivered from what they firmly believe to be witchcraft.
And in the darkness of the city and the villages beyond, similar shouts and
screams echo from makeshift church to makeshift church.
"I have been delivered from
witches and wizards today!" exclaimed one exhausted-looking woman.
Pastors in southeast Nigeria
claim illness and poverty are caused by witches who bring terrible misfortune
to those around them. And those denounced as witches must be cleansed through
deliverance or cast out.
As daylight breaks, and we travel
out to the rural villages it becomes apparent the most vulnerable to this stigmatization
of witchcraft are children.
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A crowd gathered around two
brothers and their sister. Tears streamed down their mother's face as she cast
out her children from the family, accusing them of causing the premature deaths
of two of their siblings with black magic.
"I am afraid. They are
witches and they can kill me as well," she sobbed.
Taking his time to talk to the
mother, Sam Ikpe-Itauma, an imposing man wearing a "Child's Rights &
Rehabilitation Network" t-shirt, has come to try to rescue the three
children.
"If we are not here there's
a possibility of them being thrown into the river, buried alive or stabbed to
death," Sam said.
He tries to persuade their mother
and a crowd of villagers that the three children are not witches - but no one
believes him. And so, putting the children in his white pick-up, he drives away
to his orphanage and safety.
Sam runs Child's Rights &
Rehabilitation Network, or CRARN -- an orphanage that supports nearly 200
children. All of them were accused of witchcraft and cast out by their
families, often after being tortured. The orphanage provides security,
healthcare, nutrition and counseling.
Godwin's story is typical. As he
sat next to the quiet 5-year-old, Sam said that after Godwin's mother died, the
church pastor told his family that "Godwin is responsible."
From his own investigation,
questioning Godwin and talking with neighbors, Sam said that when a relative
asked Godwin if he was a witch, "he said no and was beaten and made the
confession that he actually killed the mother."
Sam said Godwin was locked up
with his mother's corpse every night for three weeks with little food or water
before a neighbor contacted Sam, who was able to rescue him.
Other children at his orphanage
bear the scars of being beaten, attacked with boiling water, and cuts from
machetes. But these children are the ones lucky to be alive.
"A child witch is said to be
a witch when that child possessed with certain spiritual spells capable of
making that child transform into cat, snake, vipers, insects, any other animal
and that child is capable of wreaking havoc like killing of people, bringing
diseases, misfortune into the family," Sam said.
"When a child is accused of
being a witch -- that child is hated absolutely by everybody surrounding him so
such children are sent out of the home... But unfortunately such children do
not always live long. A lot of them, they're either killed, abandoned by the
parents, tortured in the church or trafficked out of the city."
Sam doesn't believe in witchcraft
and is trying to raise awareness in local communities now gripped by hysteria.
Belief in witchcraft is rooted in
centuries of tradition, but it's only in the last 10 years, that it has become
associated with child abuse, he said.
"It's a social crisis,"
he added. "Poverty propels this child witch phenomenon and poverty is a
twin sister to ignorance.
"Most vulnerable children
come from single parents, divorced parents, dysfunctional families."
But the orphanage has very little
space for more children. Overstretched finances mean he can barely pay a staff
of 16 people, as well as feed the children.
Instead, many children are left
to roam the streets.
"My parents sent me out of
the house -- said I'm a witch," said Samuel, a 15-year-old who has lived
on the streets for five years after a local pastor blamed him for unexpected
deaths in the family.
"I was beaten by the prophet
in the church," he said in a quiet voice.
Samuel lives in an abandoned
building with 10 other children accused of witchcraft. A local group, 'Stepping Stones Nigeria,' which is dedicated
to helping street children, visits them.
"Religious leaders
capitalize on the ignorance of some parents in the villages just to make some
money off them," said Lucky Inyang, project coordinator for 'Stepping
Stones Nigeria'.
"They can say your child is
a witch and if you bring the child to the church we can deliver the child but
eventually they don't deliver the children... The parents go back to the pastor
and say, 'why is it you have not been able to deliver the child' and the pastor
says 'Oh - this one has gone past deliverance - they've eaten too much flesh so
you have to throw the child out.'"
And most pastors charge a fee for
deliverance -- anywhere from $300 to $2,000.
One of the most notorious and
influential pastors is Helen Ukpabio of Liberty Gospel Church. Her 1999 film,
the widely distributed, "End of the Wicked" has been attacked by
child rights groups for its depictions of Satan possessing children.
She had agreed to an interview
but the meeting was continually postponed for two days.
But in her preaching at Liberty
Gospel Church, she heralds success stories of how she has driven out demons
through deliverance.
"Witches and wizards, they
started getting afraid. I never gave them rest!" she shouted to a cheering
congregation.
Some pastors believe education is
a more powerful tool against witchcraft fears.
"One of the things that
caused the parents to abandon the children is ignorance," explains another
local pastor, Celestine Effiong.
The local government, however,
accuses Sam Ikpe-Itauma and Lucky Inyang of using the children to run a scam.
"We insist that the name of
Akwa Ibom state must not be smeared and the people of the world should not be
deceived by certain NGOs who are claiming to be taking care of stigmatized
children of Akwa Ibom," said Aniekan Umanah, the Information Commissioner
of Nigeria's Akwa Ibom state.
"This is a ruse, they are
making money for themselves."
Stories of NGOs rescuing children,
say the government, are exaggerated. They argue instead, that a new Child
Right's bill outlawing child stigmatization has largely ended the problem.
But despite some arrests, so far,
the government acknowledges, there have been no prosecutions.
"There may be problems yes
but it's been blown out of proportion and people are capitalizing, on what
ordinarily may be a social problem, across the globe in painting Akwa Ibom
state black -- that is the aspect we say no to. We will not allow the image of
our state to be smeared."
Sam and other NGOs deny any
improprieties, insist their finances are a matter of public record and plead
with the government to support their cause.
"Relevant government
agencies, working on security and protection of children must step up their
efforts to make sure any child that is stigmatized must -- that parent, the
churches, the law must be evoked to make sure such people face the law
immediately, otherwise it must go on and on, on and on."
With the night
comes the screams of more deliverances -- and more witches to be cast out.