War, poverty, and allegations of child witchcraft in Africa

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Another disturbing (and horrifying) development in Africa, as reported by the NYT:

In parts of Angola, Congo and the Congo Republic, a surprising number of children are accused of being witches, and then are beaten, abused or abandoned. Child advocates estimate that thousands of children living in the streets of Kinshasa, Congo’s capital, have been accused of witchcraft and cast out by their families, often as a rationale for not having to feed or care for them.

The officials in one northern Angolan town identified 432 street children who had been abandoned or abused after being called witches. A report last year by the government’s National Institute for the Child and the United Nations Children’s Fund described the number of children said to be witches as “massive.”

The notion of child witches is not new here. It is a common belief in Angola’s dominant Bantu culture that witches can communicate with the world of the dead and usurp or “eat” the life force of others, bringing their victims misfortune, illness and death. Adult witches are said to bewitch children by giving them food, then forcing them to reciprocate by sacrificing a family member.

But officials attribute the surge in persecutions of children to war — 27 years in Angola, ending in 2002, and near constant strife in Congo. The conflicts orphaned many children, while leaving other families intact but too destitute to feed themselves.

“The witches situation started when fathers became unable to care for the children,” said Ana Silva, who is in charge of child protection for the children’s institute. “So they started seeking any justification to expel them from the family.”

To which one can respond... how? Needless to say, it will take putting an end to war and poverty in Africa, or at least to most of the war and most of the poverty, to free these poor children and their demented families from this madness. In the meantime, and it will be a long, long time, one hopes that international aid and the involvement (and perhaps intervention) of international organizations can alleviate some of the suffering.

The deeper problem, however, is that this isn't just about politics and economics. It's about culture and religion as well. And it is far more difficult to change the latter than the former, which means that putting an end to war and poverty would only be the start.