I don't know whether anyone saw this the first time it was screened or the repeat last night (16th Nov), but Channel 4's Dispatches documentary
series did a disturbing episode called 'Saving Africa's Witch Children'.
The programme was about the murderous stranglehold the Pentacostal church is having over the undeducated, disenfranchised poor in Nigeria. That in
itself is a familiar tale, but some of the new slants on this take on an often seen story were particularly harrowing. It's also interesting that the
area the documentary focused on - fantastically poor and exploited - has more churches per square mile than any other place on Earth.
Much of this stemmed from a woman called Helen Ukpabio who is the head of a very large series of churches (Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries) who
created a series of films, the most (in)famous being 'The End of Wicked' which depicts children being possessed by "Satan", practicising
cannibalism and killing members of their own family. The film looks like incredibly low-budget schlok, but it's perhaps the most widely seen film in
Nigeria and the only truly frightening thing about it is that the population have been brainwashed into believing it's true. In her defence, Ukpabio
claims the film is no different than a Harry Potter fantasy tale with no message behind it. However, the Nigerians in this area are a desperate
people, with little to no education, massive poverty levels, the environment is being blighted by oil refinery which is making coastal fishing an
issue (and therefore exacerbating existing problems) who are looking for a scapegoat for their problems and children, including babies as young as 3
months old are being blamed for society's problems.
As always, there's people very willing to exploit people's misery, need and confusion. Whilst Ukpabio saw herself as a JK Rowling, there were many
people shown who were obviously styled on charismatic, American-styled Evangelists. The programme starts with a pastor who admits to having killed 110
child witches and believes that there are over 2,000,000 child witches in just one state of Nigeria but not he just treats the children - for a high
price. This is seriously big business. Literally, people were giving everything they had to have their children exorcised and treated by these
money-grubbing preachers.
These treatements might included being shackled and starved for days, weeks or months; beatings and torture. Even if the treatment was a success - and
the preacher had milked as much money as they could from a family - the child was still viewed as an outcast by the villages and extended families.
The reality for most is that if they stayed in the village, they'd have been murdered. One scene showed a large burly bloke sharpening a machete and
then declaring that he was going to kill a 5-year-old girl standing only feet from him, if she wasn't removed from the village.
These aren't idle threats. The programme showed kids that had been set on fire by their own families, children attacked by machetes and butchered, a
young girl that had a nail driven right into her brain and was left brain-damaged, kids that had been blinded, children that were disfigured by acid
and barbed wire and so on. Throughout the programme, as the car travelled from town to town, the streets were littered with the bodies of kids who had
been murdered in these witchhunts.
Quite a few people appeared to have YouTube'd this. I've not got broadband myself so I can't comment on whether this is the best encoding of it or
not as I can't see them myself, but this is a complete set of clips that make up the programme. Some of them have embedding disabled but the clips
can be accessed via the link.
I'd seriously recommend this programme to anyone that actually gives a damn about how children are treated, not just in their country, but elsewhere
too.
Originally posted by dodgygeeza
Incredibly barbaric. Absolutely sickening
Your youtube links don't work.
Sorry about that. I don't have broadband myself, so I can't see YouTube clips so I wasn't aware whether they were embedding properly or not.
Hopefully it's fixed now. I've tried to link to the website of the refugee centre but the name of the country it's actually based in is
automatically censored out.
The lack of response to this thread saddens me as the issue is such a serious one.
Unfortunately, without any shadow of a doubt, if the people responsible for this were self-professed Muslims, this thread would be many pages long
with people baying for the blood of these monsters. I guess it's different when it's modern-day Christians.
I geuss history does repeat itself this reminds me of the witch trail in europe. I cannot belive people can be so ignorant today. well I shouldn't
say ignorant because it is more like stupid. A oil spills in the ocean fish die you blame it on witch craft. That is like being hit in the head with
a hammer, getting a headache 10 min. later and saying wicth craft did it. That is stupidity. I am a christain and this makes me mad how dare these
people use god's name for such cruelty. People might say bad things about muslims but i doubt this would have happened in a muslim community. What
these people have coming to them is 10 fold worse than what they have done to these poor babies.
Originally posted by Merriman Weir
The lack of response to this thread saddens me as the issue is such a serious one.
Unfortunately, without any shadow of a doubt, if the people responsible for this were self-professed Muslims, this thread would be many pages long
with people baying for the blood of these monsters. I guess it's different when it's modern-day Christians.
[edit on 21-11-2008 by Merriman Weir]
This is fascinating and disturbing stuff and I look forward to checking it out in more detail when I have more time. I appreciate your input and I
will follow this thread. Just dont have the time to dig into it right this minute.
Here are a few (older) links that might have some interest for those following this topic:
3. Africa Watch: A site with some longer articles on extremist Christianity in Africa (warning: interesting but potentially biased): discernment-ministries.org...
4. Not directly religion-related, but long and fascinating New Yorker article about the unbelievable difficulty of life in the massive city of Lagos,
Nigeria: www.newyorker.com...
Hi,
I watched part of the documentary, I was mystified and I could not believe or imagine such a thing happening in this 21st century even though i grew
up in Africa.
It shows the level of illiteracy is so high and intense, this calls for the more privileged citizen of the world to do something about child abuse
caused by ignorance and miseducation. Me, you, and others need to do something about situation like this.
Thank you