By Laura Hirahara

Impunity Watch Reporter, Africa

AKWA IBOM, Nigeria- In several states of Nigeria, children accused by church leaders of being witches are tortured and abandoned by their communities, to either die or be trafficked out of the country.  While the belief in witchcraft has been a centuries old tradition in Nigeria, a majority of the abuse of ‘child witches’ has been occurring for the last 10 years.  In most cases, the leader of a make-shift church will identify a child as a witch and promise the parents that he will ‘deliver’ the child.  Deliverance includes torturing a child until they confess and can cost anywhere from $300- $2,000.  The torture itself ranges from acid baths to burnings to beatings and can result in death.

Often, the pastor will claim the child cannot be delivered and needs to be cast out.   If they are not killed they are abandoned and many found by children’s rights groups bear serious wounds and scars from their ordeals.  One such group, led by Sam Ikpe-Itauma, works to educate Nigerians about the realities of both their beliefs and the exploitive scams many of the pastors are operating.  Mr. Ikpe-Itauma’s Child’s Rights & Rehabilitation Network includes a shelter for 200 abandoned children who were branded witches in their communities.

One child currently living at the shelter, Godwin, says after his mother died his church pastor told the family it was Godwin’s fault.  Godwin was beaten until he confessed to killing his mother through witchcraft.  Afterwards, he was forced to sleep with his mother’s corpse every night for three weeks until Mr. Ikpe-Itauma found him and brought him to the shelter.

Several organizations have charged the Nigerian government to stop the abuse of child witches.  This particular type of child abuse has been made illegal by the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (of which Nigeria is a member) and Nigeria’s Child Rights Act passed by most states.  Despite identifying the abuse, those in local government believe programs like Mr. Ikpe-Itauma are frauds, meant to make money and smear the reputation of the country.  The Information Commissioner of Nigeria’s Akwa Ibom state, Aniekan Umanah, stated “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[… w]e will not allow the image of our state to be smeared.”  Several arrests have been made and the government has promised to provide more regulation on church organizations but so far, there have been no prosecutions.

For more information, please see;

CNN- Children Abused, Killed as Witches in Nigeria– 27 August, 2010

The Zimdiaspora- Nigeria’s Child Witch Hunt; Children Accused and Abused– 15 August, 2010

Gather- Nigerian Children Accused of Witchcraft are Cast Out of Society– 25 August, 2010