{"id":3617,"date":"2011-07-15T14:06:18","date_gmt":"2011-07-15T14:06:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=3617"},"modified":"2011-07-15T14:06:18","modified_gmt":"2011-07-15T14:06:18","slug":"abused-burned-and-buried-alive-the-horrific-suffering-of-nigerias-child-witches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2011\/07\/15\/abused-burned-and-buried-alive-the-horrific-suffering-of-nigerias-child-witches\/","title":{"rendered":"Abused, burned and buried alive: The horrific suffering of Nigeria&#8217;s child &#8216;witches&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul>\n<li><span>11-year-old boy had acid poured over him<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Young girl had a nail driven into her skull<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Children as young as two are being burned, poisoned and buried alive in Nigeria for being witches, it has been claimed.<\/p>\n<p>Hundreds of youngsters are being subjected to horrific violence or chained up for weeks after being accused of withcraft, according to a report by a children&#8217;s rights charity.<\/p>\n<p>In one case, an 11-year-old boy was killed after acid was poured over him; in another, a girl who had a nail driven into her head was left permanently disabled.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div id=\"attachment_3618\" style=\"width: 478px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3618\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3618\" title=\"article-1383732-0BEB53E700000578-48_468x338\" src=\"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/07\/article-1383732-0BEB53E700000578-48_468x338.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"468\" height=\"338\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-3618\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Children protest in the southern Nigerian city of Eket. A number of youngsters have been abused in the country over allegations of witchcraft<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Last September a man tried to bury six-year-old twin boys he held responsible for the death of his wife.<\/p>\n<p>Lancaster-based charity Stepping Stones Nigeria has compiled reports of more than 250 cases of violence against children accused of witchcraft in Akwa Ibom state.<\/p>\n<p>Although belief in witchcraft is well established in Nigeria and other African countries, until the late Nineties it was largely women and the elderly who were accused.<\/p>\n<p>Now some families blame their children for every misfortune that hits them &#8211; from death to sickness and drunkenness.<\/p>\n<div><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/i\/pix\/2011\/05\/05\/article-0-073C9157000005DC-606_233x369.jpg\" alt=\"Campaigner: Gary Foxcroft of Stepping Stones Nigeria says accused children are often simply different from others\" width=\"233\" height=\"369\" \/>Campaigner: Gary Foxcroft of Stepping Stones Nigeria says accused children are often simply different from others<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Many accusations are made by pastors who then charge the accused child&#8217;s family a fee for &#8216;exorcisms&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>After the child has been accused the pastor carries out long-winded exorcism rituals. Sometimes children are chained up in churches and forced to fast for weeks, or are beaten and tortured until they confess.<\/p>\n<p>More then four out of five children accused of being witches are abandoned by their families and forced to sleep rough.<\/p>\n<p>In one disturbing case, police discovered an eight-year-old boy locked in a room beside the corpse of his mother.<\/p>\n<p>The boy&#8217;s uncle had accused him of using witchcraft to kill her and tried to force his head into her body before abandoning him.<\/p>\n<p>Gary Foxcroft, founder of Stepping Stones Nigeria, told the Times that the children were often from broken homes, or were different in ways that set them apart.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;They might be very intelligent or suffer from learning difficulties. Some of them will have physical complaints such as epilepsy, bed-wetting and sleepwalking,&#8217; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The charity is set to present its findings to the Commission of Enquiry into Child Witchcraft at the Nigerian High Commission in London today.<\/p>\n<p>Read more:\u00a0http:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-1383732\/Buried-alive-New-report-reveals-suffering-Nigerias-child-witches.html#ixzz1SBO8yOWB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>11-year-old boy had acid poured over him Young girl had a nail driven into her skull Children as young as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[968,994],"class_list":["post-3617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-witchcraft-2","tag-nigeria","tag-witches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}