http://www.crin.org/docs/Stepping_stones_witchcraft.pdf

“Witch-hunting is like an infectious disease and is slowly spreading to newer areas and solutions will have to be found to eradicate this evil practice”1

Stepping Stones Nigeria is based in the city of Lancaster, a place that has witnessed some of the most famous witch trials in UK history. Witchcraft accusations in Lancaster led to the trial and hanging of 10 women and one man in what became known as the Lancashire Witch Trials. Today, nearly 400 years later, cases such as Victoria Climbiè, who was tortured and killed due to witchcraft accusation; Boy Adam, whose mutilated torso was discovered floating in the River Thames and Child B, an eight-year-old child brought to the UK from Angola, who was beaten, cut and had chilli rubbed in her eyes after her aunt and two others believed she was a witch, highlight the fact that such beliefs still abound. However as the UK government’s most recent report identifies, witchcraft belief and accusation is “not confined to particular countries, cultures or religions nor is it confined to recent migrants”.

At the international level, Stepping Stones Nigeria, along with numerous other civil society organisations around the world, is witnessing a dramatic rise in witchcraft accusations and subsequent gross violations of human rights that take place due to them. However, to date, this phenomenon has received little in the way of concerted attention from the wider humanitarian community.  Stepping Stones Nigeria believes that, left unchallenged and inadequately understood, witchcraft accusations will increasingly become an issue of pressing concern for the UNHCR and other humanitarian organisations working with refugees, asylum seekers and trafficking victims in the years to come. This paper therefore explores whether witchcraft accusations are indeed a protection concern for UNHCR and the wider humanitarian community.

Following from this, it attempts to identify what action may be taken by such agencies in order to gain a deeper understanding into this issue and develop guidelines for best practice when working on cases involving witchcraft accusations.

Whilst based on Stepping Stones Nigeria’s experience of working with so-called child ‘witches’ in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria since 2005, the paper also takes a broader look at the belief in witchcraft around the world, identifies key groups that are at risk of witchcraft accusations, outlines where witchcraft accusations may be most likely to occur, analyses the factors that lead to these becoming a protection concern and finally makes a number of recommendations for policy makers and practitioners working on this issue.

Before progressing with this paper it may be of interest to the reader to note Stepping Stones
Nigeria’s official stance on the issue of child witchcraft:

“Stepping Stones Nigeria does not believe that children can be ‘witches’ and is not concerned with proving or disproving the existence or non-existence of child witchcraft. However Stepping Stones Nigeria acknowledges the right of individuals to hold this belief on the condition that this does not lead to the abuse of child rights as outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child”.

Further information

• Trafficking: Call for urgent action to address link with witchcraft (27 July 2007)
• DRC: Children's lives torn by accusations of witchcraft (21 November 2007)
• UK: Africans Unite Against Child Abuse Responds to Report on Child Abuse and Witchcraft (June 2006) 
• The Invention of Child Witches in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Save the Children UK, March 2006)
  

Previous Publication (general) items

• 21/04/2009: AFRICA: Advancing Children’s Rights: A Guide for Civil Society Organisations on how to engage with the African child rights committee
• 21/04/2009: AFRICA: Silent Suffering: The psychosocial impact of war, HIV and other high-risk situations on girls and boys in West and Central Africa
• 21/04/2009: ADVOCACY: General Comment on Children’s Rights in Juvenile Justice
• 20/04/2009: ISRAEL: Implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child
• 20/04/2009: CHINA: “I Will Fight to My Last Breath”: Barriers to AIDS Treatment for Children in China

Organisation Contact Details:

Stepping Stones Nigeria
24D St Leonard's House
St Leonard's Gate
Lancaster
LA1 1NN
Tel: 01524 849158
Email: info@steppingstonesnigeria.org
Website: www.steppingstonesnigeria.org

Last updated 24/04/2009 12:00:30

Please note that these reports are hosted by CRIN as a resource for Child Rights campaigners, researchers and other interested parties. Unless otherwise stated, they are not the work of CRIN and their inclusion in our database does not necessarily signify endorsement or agreement with their content by CRIN.

Your Feedback

christine wrote on 23/05/2009:
I am greatly disturbed, angry and sad by these accusations that young children may be accused of witchery and that nobody who is in a position of power and policy makers are doing absolutely nothing about this. If only preachers who blame poor innocent children were educated just like our fortunate countries, then maybe acts such as these wouldn't happen to our children....