Perilous Times
Children abused, killed as witches in Nigeria
By Christian Purefoy, CNN
August 25, 2010 5:09 p.m. EDT
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
* Children in Nigeria are getting abused after being accused of
being witches
* Community workers say kids are cast out of their villages,
attacked and even killed
* Rescued children bear the scars of being beaten, attacked with
boiling water, and machete cuts
* State leaders say the problem is being exaggerated and accuse
child workers of working a scam
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.
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 was beaten by the prophet in the church.
--Samuel, 15, now homeless
"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.
Check out the CRARN website
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.
Witches and wizards, they started getting afraid. I never gave them
rest.
--Pastor Helen Ukpabio
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 skeleton staff of four
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.