A 2008 article in the Los Angeles Times from Associated Press reports that thousands of African children have been abandoned, tortured and murdered because they are believed to be witches. While in the West the belief in witchcraft has largely died out, the burning and murdering of “witches” was common practice in Europe and North America. The infamous Salem witch trials are a well known example of this witchcraft belief induced hysteria. As the modernist worldview gradually replaced the pre-scientific worldview witchcraft beliefs and the persecution of witches largely died out in the 18th century with some exceptions in pockets in Eastern Europe. In other parts of the world witchcraft beliefs are still part of the prevailing worldview especially in parts of Asia and Africa. In Africa there appears to be a revival of witchcraft beliefs as African traditional beliefs mixed with Evangelical fervour have given it a new impetus.[1] Gary Foxcroft of Steppingstones Nigeria, an organisation that is active in campaigning against child witchcraft abuse has stated that it is an absolute scandal how the teachings of Jesus are twisted and abused to commit horrible child abuses. They have also mobilised a coalition of churches and Christians in Niegria and beyond who are outraged by the suffering caused in the name of Jesus which is directly in contrast with Jesus' original teaching.[2]
Another worrisome trend in Africa is that children have not only been victimized by believers in witchcraft, but that they are also used as witch-finders resulting in people being convicted and punished on the basis of children's testimonies .[3][4]
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In Europe during the sixteenth century older children comprised a special category of witch hunters and brought accusations of witchcraft against adults.[4] In 1525 the traveling judge in the Navarrese witch hunt utilized two "girl witches" who he felt would identify others as witches. He hung about forty witches based on the testimony of the two girls. Child witchhunters sometimes accused their parents, grandmothers, or other people as witches.[4] Children would either bring charges of witchcraft themselves or exhibit symptoms of possession or bewitchment that would cause a panic among adults, at which time adult relatives would begin making accusations of witchcraft. The most renowned case of trials started by child accusations is that of Salem, Massachusetts, that occurred in 1692.[3] Children were viewed as having a significant role in convicting witches, due to their being able to identify people, impulsively and without compulsion.[4] Children who made such false allegations often directed them at adults with whom they had strained relationships, such as teachers, puritanical neighbors or mothers' boyfriends, in the Salem witch trials.[5]
By the start of the seventeenth century many children were being punished and put in prison for taking part in witchcraft, usually because of their alleged participation in Sabbats.[4] It was a common belief that witches' children inherited witchcraft from their parents. Witches were thought to pass on their power and knowledge to their children. It was often the practice when charging a person with witchcraft to charge the whole family. Witches who confessed often claimed that they learned witchcraft from a parent. Pierre de Lancre and Francesco Maria Guazzo believed that it was enough proof of a witch's guilt to have witch parents. They believed witch parents introduced the children to Satan, took the children to Sabbats, married children to demons, inspired the children to have sex with Satan, or had sex with Satan with the child present. Many times the child accused of witchcraft, due to being shunned, threatened community members, thereby enforcing their beliefs that the child was a witch.[6]
There are several cases of witchcraft in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that involved children as witches. In Sweden in 1669 a large number of children were included in a witch hunt and in Wurzburg as in Salem in 1692, children were the focus of witch hunts. In Augsberg, beginning in 1723 an investigation into twenty children between the ages of six and sixteen resulted in them being arrested for witchcraft. They were held for a year in solitary confinement before being transferred to a hospital. The last child was freed in 1729.[7]
One example of a child-witch narrative in Germany is that of a seven year old girl named Brigitta Horner. In 1639, Brigitta claimed to be a witch and that she had participated in witches Sabbats where the Devil was present. Brigitta claimed to have been baptised in the name of the Devil instead of God. The pastor who baptized Brigitta was married to her grandmother who then taught her the arts of witchcraft.[8]
In Nigeria, some unscrupulous African Pentecostal pastors have incorporated African witchcraft beliefs in their brand of Christianity resulting in a campaign of violence against young Nigerians. Children and babies are branded as evil and are being abused, abandoned and even murdered while the preachers make money out of the fear of their parents and their communities providing costly exorcism services.[9]
In Angola, many orphaned children are accused of witchcraft and possession by relatives in order to justify not providing for them. Various methods are employed, such as starvation, beating, having unknown substances rubbed into their eyes or being chained or tied up.[10]
In Congo, it is estimated that there are 25,000 homeless children living on the streets of the capital city and that of these, 60% were expelled from their homes because of allegations of witchcraft. Accusations of witchcraft is the only justifiable reason for refusing to house a family member, however distant the relation.[11]
In Gambia, about 1,000 people accused of being witches were locked in detention centers in March 2009 and forced to drink a dangerous hallucinogenic potion, according to Amnesty International.[12]
In the Nigerian states of Akwa Ibom and Cross River about 15,000 children branded as witches and most of them end up abandoned and abused on the streets.[12] A documentary aired on Channel 4 and BBC Saving Africa's Witch Children shows the work of Gary Foxgroft and Stepping Stones Nigeria in addressing these abuses.
In Sierra Leone, sick infants tend to have better survival-rates due to witchhunts : "the effect of the witch cleansing probably lasts for ... years in the sense that mothers are predisposed to tend their babies with more hopefulness and real concern. ... Therefore ... many babies who, before the arrival of the witchfinder, might have been saved if the mothers had had the heart and will to stop at nothing to tend their babies, WILL now survive precisely because they will receive the best attention which circumstances allow as the mothers now believe that the remaining children arre free of witchcraft. So there is a REAL reduction in the infant mortality rate in the years immediately following the witchcleansing movement".[13]