Children Branded "Witches", To Excuse Torture and Abandonment
By Louc74
@Louc74 (620)
November 27, 2009 10:06am CST
Some of you may have heard about the "Witch Children" of Africa. Channel 4 in Britain have followed Gary Foxcroft, who has set up a charity, and basically devoted himself to saving these children.
In the poorest parts of Africa, Evangelistic "Pastors" are deeming certain children "witches", who are to blame for disasters, deaths in the family (which is a common pre-cursor to being labelled), and poor harvests.
These "pastors" are then charging a fortune to "exorcise" the demon witch out of the child, so it's basically an easy way to make money for them!
A lot of their parents can't afford these payments, so they are torturing the children themselves. Children have nails driven through their skulls, are beaten, burnt, starved, and worse. One father attended a normal "church" service with his 9 year old son. The pastor must have thought he looked like he had money, because he picked the little boy out, and proclaimed him a witch in front of the whole congregation.
The father immediately took the little boy outside, and poured acid all over him, from head to toe, then abandoned him at the side of the road. He died a few weeks later from his injuries. The father dd this simply to be rid of the responsibility of being responsible for a "witch".
The congregations are made up of neighbours frm the same village, so the parents cannot take their children back home with them once they have been branded, and cannot afford the "exorcism" fee, so a lot of them are simply abandoning them, and telling them they're on their own. These are kids as young as 2 years old.
One little 5 year old was abandoned along with her 10 month old brother, also branded a witch.
If you want to learn more, have a look at Channel 4 website: www.channel4.com/dispatches or at Gary Foxcrofts Stepping Stones website:
www.steppingstonesnigeria.org
The Met in the UK have advised that there have been almost 60 cases recently reported of the abuse of witch children in the UK. More of these churches are being set up in this country, and it seems as if the pastors running them are no better than the ones in Africa. Seems to me that they think torturing and killing small innocent children is a viable way to make money!
If you can, please sign the petitions on the sites to the African Government. I hate that we aren't doing more to help these vulnerable kids.
2 responses
@Louc74 (620)
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27 Nov 09
Hi, Thea. No, don't apologise! Ask as many as you want, it's such a huge subject, and I wanted to write more, but I kind of thought the post was long enough! Lol!
It's taking place mainly in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, though it's now spreading. Africa has always had superstitions about witch craft, but it's basically through one truly evil woman that this has started to spread, and become about witch children. She is Helen Ukpabio - you'll find loads about her on Wiki. She founded The African Evangelist franchise Liberty Foundation Gospel Minsteries in 1992, and has written a book called "Unveiling the mysteries of Witchcraft." She says that you can "diagnose" a child as being a witch.
In her book, she states that "if a child under the age of two screams in the night, cries, and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan." The woman's nuts! She's also very, very rich now! And she's married to a doctor, who you would think would tell her that these are all symptoms of a child suffering from an illness!
She produced a video as well, showing childrens spirits leaving their body when they're asleep, to travel to speak to a demon, then come back and afflict suffering on their families.
But the people who are trying to stop this, say that it can all be tracked directly back to her.
@Louc74 (620)
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27 Nov 09
Just occurred to me, Thea; our missionaries, from Britain, and the US, had gone over there, with their bibles, and hit those people over the head with stories of evil spirits and the like, so it probably came from that, originally, then itjust took that one crazy woman, and pastors who saw an opportunity for riches.
@thea09 (18305)
• Greece
27 Nov 09
I wonder how they can be taken in if it isn't part of their original heritage to believe this rubbish. Well what better place to try fleecing people than Nigeria but the things you describe with the children is horrendous. It's just pure evil to set up something playing on peoples fears like that but what on earth could drive someone into using the children as the target. Surely the authorities have some method of breaking this sect up. There's always so much criticism when the West intervenes against traditional customs such as female cicumcism which have been practiced for years but I wouldn't have thought this would be given any credibilty as a practice at all. It's just disgusting.
