Childhood in Nigeria
After being feted in Britain for exposing the appalling abuse of children accused of being witches, a Nigerian charity is apparently being intimidated by its own government. The headquarters of Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN), which works with the British fund Stepping Stones Nigeria, was raided by a group of men claiming to be police officers earlier this month…These shadowy figures then went on to beat children kept in the care of the charity after they protested against the intimidation…It has since become apparent that the police were accompanied by a lawyer from Lagos, Gary says. This is the same lawyer who has been representing Evangelist Helen Ukpabio in the law suits that she has filed against CRARN, Stepping Stones Nigeria and Channel Four since the broadcast of the internationally acclaimed documentary film – Saving Africa’s Witch Children. Stepping Stones allege the police, conspiring with Ms Ukpabio, have created a trumped-up charge of fraud to frighten Sam and his colleagues and stop their life-saving work.
Stepping Stones Nigeria on child witches.
Stepping Stones Nigeria does not wish to denounce any faith organisation. However the role of the church, especially some of the new Pentecostals, in spreading the belief in child witches cannot be underestimated. There are numerous so-called pastors in the region who are wrongly branding children as ‘witches’ mainly for economic self gain and personal recognition.
Helen Ukpabio apparently being one of the worst.
Supporters of Helen Akpabio stormed the Calabar Cultural Center today with the intent of disrupting a child’s rights conference being sponsored by Stepping Stones Nigeria and the Nigerian Humanist Movement. The crowd of over 150 fanatics stormed into the hall chanting religious slogans and intimidating the small crowd, which they outnumbered by more than 5 to 1.
A very pretty story all around.
I like the phrase “faith organization”. Nowadays you don’t even have to be a religion to qualify for immunity from persecution by secular devils, it would seem.
This is wicked and evil. My God, I think it’s high time to “denounce any faith organization.” Excuse me while I throw up. These poor children.
Perhaps Mooney and Kirshenbaum, or any of their followers, would like to explain to us how we rescue children from scapegoating and murder without confronting the cherished and deeply held beliefs of depraved zealots. Just how are we to get the message across that it’s wrong to kill children without confronting the insanity right in front of us: the belief in witchcraft? I do hope we can find a way to do so without offending them. It would be such a shame if they got angry enough to denounce us.
Unfortunately, unlike science, burning children as witches IS entirely compatible with religion.
There is an article about child witchcraft in the Nigerian Tribune by the man who was attacked at the conference, Leo Igwe: http://www.tribune.com.ng/28072009/opinion.html. Leo’s glasses, phone and bag were stolen by the protesters.
A video about it is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWktZEj6OZ8
A Stepping Stones press release about the incident is here: http://www.steppingstonesnigeria.org/files/tia_Raids_Child_Rights_Conference_In_Calabar.pdf
…and a petition to bring Helen Ukpabio to justice is here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/make-helen-ukpabio-face-justice
Although I had heard that the Governor had called for Ukpabio’s arrest, I’m not sure if she has been.
The banners which the children are carrying, saying “arrest the false prophets” and “we are not witches or wizards” are in all probability, not in the slightest bit, understood by them at all. They look so young. It is so sad. Who needs parents like the ones they have – they certainly don’t anyway. Such betrayal to such little innocent human beings. Life dishes out love so unevenly and it is so utterly unfair. Some children get the latest ipods and all the love in the world while others get booted out by the very people who have been given the privileged duty of caring and loving them unconditionally; as well as getting to hold banners.
It is nice to read about a non-religious Humanist group taking a genuine interest in the so-called witch children. There are so many non-religious, very educated people out there spending too much time getting into online petty nonsensical pseudo-intellectual religious wrangles with each other. They would be better off investing their time, highlighting, like OB, atrocities of the ilk of the witch children. and the wrongdoing of children in the wider world. Those who have had good childhoods, owe it to children like these, to stand up for them. After-all education is power. To those whom much is given much is expected.
Off topic, but I can’t resist. Ophelia, you just must pop over to Mooney’s place and see what he’s written about his appearance on a TV show talking about The Republican War on Science. Motes and beams doesn’t begin to cover it.
Here’s what I wrote:
I’ll give it to you Chris, you’ve got boundless chutzpah. How uncivil of you. How counterproductive. Won’t this just turn people off your message? Honestly, what is it with you? For me, but not for thee, apparently.
Kinda fun to bash Republicans and the religious right again by way of a break from bashing new militant atheists? Was that it?
Gawd what a prat.
“Suffer not a Witch to Live’
I looked up above phrase in a comment that I read in one of the links in the post. I was gob-smacked to read that there is so much hatred coming from Landover Baptists in America alone.
http://www.landoverbaptist.org/sermons/witches.html
With mind-sets such as theirs’ one would not wonder why children in Nigeria are being killed and slaughtered. It beggars belief.
Some religious apologists ought to get real and see the bigger picture.
Talk about ‘Exodus’? There Is a mass one – to the graves – with the slaughter of Nigerian innocents – all in the name of their Dear Wonderful God.
Marie-Therese —
You do realize that the Landover Baptist Church is fictional, don’t you?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landover_Baptist_Church
Or was your point that religious fundamentalism is not limited to Nigeria? One might also point to Sarah Palin’s pastor, in that case.
Oops! Nope, Julia F , I did not realise in the slightest that it was a hoax site. What a dope -I am to be sure. A parody of fundamentalist Christianity. Well, that is a new one on me indeed! My head is almost stuck under the computer table with embarrassment, as I compose this comment. Tis just my rotten luck to come up against this satirist Chris Harper and his religious satirist literature in my quest to discover more about the dreadful Helen Akupabio who founded her own church in Africia.
Africans, like the Irish, have one thing in common – in that they both have the propensity for strong beliefs in mythological kit, and are therefore very gullible to soaking up beliefs of the kind, Helen Akpabio has on offer. She is big Mama and the pope is big Papa!
I also had a wee glimpse at the ‘Vegan’ sermon, whereby one ‘supposed’ pastor ascertained that they were witches. Admittedly, I did think his thinking was rather strange. But then, one hears so much about all the acutely conservative religious fundamentalists in the bible belt of America that nothing of this calibre would be unsurprising.
Thanks J. F. for bringing it to my attention. :_-)!
Don’t be embarrassed M-T! Fred Phelps is at least as absurd and he is no parody.
I worked in Nigeria for several years in very rural areas. I main problem that I saw was the massive popularity of fundamentalist American churches in rural areas.
Like stepping stones I saw the unsavoury influence of the pentecostalists on local belief systems.
charismatic pastors find it easy to use local traditional beliefs in magic to their own ends to self aggrandise and increase their attendances (and personal wealth) at the expense of innocent children.
Thanks Jimmy. That’s apparently just what Helen Ukpabio is doing.
Imagine getting rich by fostering the idea that children are witches…it’s beyond disgusting…