Gov. Ben Ayade of Cross Rivers State
Mrs Lilian Ekanem is Chairperson, Cross River State Child Protection Network. She spoke with Dianabasi Effiong on Child Witches branding. Excerpts:
Main communities With Child Witch Syndrome
This child witch syndrome in Cross River State or witchcraft-branding is really prevailing in Akpabuyo, Calabar South, we have a few cases that come out of Calabar Municipality as urban as it is, Ikom, even Ogoja, Odukpani are typically known for this.
For me I will say every part of the state. It is general phenomenon, a mind-set, cultural norm where people believe that children can be witches and for being witches they are recklessly abandoned.
Akpabuyo and Calabar South are the most prevailing communities where witchcraft branding is the norm.
It is no fault of these children that they are branded witches. For me a child is the responsibility of the care giver, the guardian or the parents.
A child does not know how he was born so if there be witchcraft the first person to be queried should be the parent.
The solution should also come from the parents or care givers and then the Church or any faith-based organisation with the right approach that will not cause any form of harm to the child.
Estimated number of kids that have died out of torture
There is no specific data to show how many of these children have died through witchcraft-branding or torturing.
But we have cases where children who were branded witches are sent out of their homes, abandoned and in the course of torture for them to confess or in the course of starvation and abandonment they suffer some of them fell sick and died.
Some of them have heavy injuries that are sustained in the process. So I cannot immediately say this is the number of those that have died out of torture.
Cases of supposed confessions of any of the children
Some children that we have rescued from the streets or the torture in progress actually used their own mouth to confess that they are witches. Some will even tell you who gave them and through what means like food, a call at midnight and some strange things they experience or encounter.
I have seen a case in Barracks Road end here in Calabar where an 18 year old girl was narrating how a neighbour gave her witchcraft through food.
And from that night on that woman kept calling her certain names like Okpok (Lizard) in the midnight. And thereafter she sees herself in a certain meeting where they carry on with certain things that I can’t even explain.
So when a child begins to speak in that light you understand that there is a problem somewhere.
We have also seen children who claimed they inherited witchcraft from their parents and that the witchcraft is a power to protect them from any form of attack. So they use it against their perceived enemies.
We have seen some who talk as if something is wrong. For me I classify some of these things the children as a nightmare; they had some terrible dreams when they tried to narrate people simply misinterpret that the child is confessing witchcraft.
I also advocate for parents and community members to consider psychological evaluation of some children.
Sometimes when a child is traumatised, heavily deprived or suffering other forms of abuse these can affect the mentality of the child so that when the child is speaking he may be saying things that are not usual and normal and immediately the first thing people do is to hang on witchcraft.
Why not think of other reasons; that this child may be sick; this child may need to see a psychiatrist; this child may be in fear; and you know fear can make you say anything.
I don’t know why they think is witch craft but I know that these children need help.
Reactions from any of the parents, victim’s Pastors of community leaders
Reactions more often than not are from pastors or faith-based organisations. Some of them try to see how the can deliver the children of witchcraft.
But the truth is that most of them are not empowered or endowed by God to do this, so they end up using their physical rather than spiritual energy and torture.
And in the process they get these children badly beaten, burnt up, facing all manners of inhuman treatment in the name of deliverance. This is absolutely wrong and inhumane.
Then the community leaders sometimes, because of ignorance or lack of information especially on the Child Rights Law, where subjecting a child to any form of torture or abuse is a crime, permit these torture to prevail in their communities, whereas it is not right.
If you are a Pastor, an acclaimed man or woman of God or you are running a witchcraft deliverance centre, better be sure that God sent you; that it is God who sent you to harm children.
The same God pronounces children as His heritage so He cannot say harm them or kill them. If they are possessed of witchcraft as you think then God will put in you the spirit and authority to just command it out.
It is not a physical thing to just break any child’s head or burn any child’s hand with fire.
Classic example of torture the children have been subjected to
I have seen three children subjected to torture in the name of witchcraft.
Their stepmother went to a certain prayer house and the woman of God in that place saw a vision that her three step daughters were responsible for her barrenness, poverty and loss of job of her husband.
So she told the husband and the two of them got up at night, tied up the children and got them well beaten. These are children of seven years, four years and two years old!
They kept on like that for three days; beating them with massive canes, poured boiled water on them at their residence at Effanga Mkpa Street in Calabar.
They tortured and kept them in a gutter outside the house. We were able to rescue those children, they are alive and doing very well. We tried to pursue the matter.
But the truth is that they were badly injured and tortured yet they did not confess the witchcraft.
To me if witches cause harm, torture, destroy and hamper development then these parents are the real witches. They are putting those wicked practices to action and arresting the development of those children.
If those children truly the children had witchcraft, don’t you think they would have attacked or revenged?
Those from Akpabuyo, you see them roaming the streets and when you ask them they will say, I was given out by my father to my father to my uncle and when my father died I was driven out’.
So you find out that some wicked uncles drive out these children to inherit the parents’ property, obtain their inheritance and branded them witches.
Way forward
Government, community members and leaders should start looking critically over this issue of child witches and punish perpetrators.
The institution responsible for safe guarding these children like the Ministry of Women Affairs are directly in charge of matters of this nature.The Ministry of Justice is not left out in the implementation of the child rights law, this is their core mandate.
The Ministry of Social Welfare and relevant sections of non-governmental organisations are saddled with that mandate to ensure that this practice would not endure in our modern society.
But then a tree cannot make a forest. We cannot do it alone. You and I cannot stay in Akpabuyo and know what is happening in Akpabuyo; except we have tentacles there.
Indigenes of these areas, community leaders and churches, families, law enforcement agencies, the Police should rise up, in fact there should be a multi-sectoral approach to stop this practice.
I am happy that the media is now focusing their intervention in this regard. Eyes will now be watching and there is hope for those affected children and families.
In Akpabuyo we even had a case where an old responsible man was lynched in his house for allegedly being a witch.
He has been in that community for years and then suddenly at his old age somebody said `he has killed my son’, no investigation, no Police intervention they just lynched that man and killed him before his children in his house.
Then you can imagine what children in similar scenario face. In that same Akpabuyo we had a case where a man drowned his own children accused of being witches.
We are saying that it has to stop, that nobody has been sanctioned does not mean it does not exist or something is not being done to stop it.
Let the media open the eyes of the community. There should be budgetary provisions, there should be sanctions for offenders and the law should take its course.
The NGOs, the lawyers that do free legal services should be encouraged because the child witch issue is an issue of discrimination, it is an issue of human rights, which should be properly redressed.
I think governments and the policy makers should provide an enabling environment, the NGOs should continue to rise up to advocate against this practice.
The Child Rights Law is not enough, it will be in book and on paper until effective implementation and enforcement is done.
There should be a Task Force on Child Rights monitoring our streets and communities. There should be watchdogs in our communities, we should have child Protection Committees.
Ministries and communities should come together to ensure that child protection is the norm and child witch syndrome is banished from our communities.
My prayers are that our eyes should open, our children are dying, and child rights implementation is a collective responsibility.
Government should take the lead in putting effective policies in place against child witch branding and child abuse.
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