Children Accused of Sorcery in DRC


Reports of children, especially girls, being accused of witchcraft and sorcery have continued.
Child protection workers in DRC report that this phenomenon is exacerbated by the breakdown of traditional family structures and communities due to the protracted armed conflict. Parents and relatives often blame family crises on atypical personal characteristics of their children, such as strange physical appearance or behavioral manners attributed to normal phases of child development.



CSK,Centre de sauvetage Kinshasa, Catholic organization who take care of the kids with problem with the law and street kids.
Jonatan, age 11, albino and accused by his family to be a "sorciere".

Accusations of sorcery are connected to the strong belief in the existence of a “second, invisible world” in many Congolese communities. Regardless of the level of education, Congolese people often believe in the ability of child-witches to travel to an invisible world at night and cause trouble.
The rapid development of revivalist churches in DRC is also intimately linked to sorcery accusations against children, according to Save the Children, as the churches encourage belief in invisible negative forces as causes of evil and poverty. Churches are then presented to communities as protection tools against these forces.




Families are encouraged to look for signs of sorcery in their women and children and then to engage in exorcism rituals. All of the revivalist churches visited provided “exorcism” services or “deliverance” services for a fee.
Furthermore, various investigations have revealed that revivalist churches regularly retain children as hostages when their families do not pay “deliverance” fees. In some instances, children are detained in extremely harsh conditions, such as deprivation of drinking water and beds, and in poor hygienic conditions.



Children accused of sorcery may be beaten, forced to swallow herbs, drink gasoline or undergo “exorcism” through revival churches, according to the report.
Many of these children end up living on the streets, in gangs or in orphanages.
So-called child sorcerers were accused of having mystical powers and their families often abandoned them, most often because of socio-economic difficulties.



In a report the United Nations Children's Fund noted that more children under the age of five die in DRC each year than in China, which has 23 times the population.
Many have been thrown out by their parents either because they were a nuisance or believed to be "possessed".



Blondine maman of the little Dieumerci, the devil heat his brain.



Posted: Jeu. - Janvier 11, 2007 at 07:27 PM          

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