Bring Hunter of Africa’s Witch Children to Justice!

As if Africans don’t already face enough problems, insane religious zealotry is compounding the suffering of the most vulnerable. In the Congo, the Central African Republic and Sudan are between 1-4 million Azande. This tribe is heavily superstitious even by African standards. In their world view there is no such thing as chance, “acts of God” or even of a devil doing mischief. Instead failing crops, bad weather, illnesses and death are blamed on practitioners of witchcraft.

The Azande feel that people are born with a (heritable) substance in the belly (some also claim the elbow) that can magically cause bad stuff to happen to people. This “black magic” is just a part of daily life. People may not even realize they are inadvertently letting their negative vibes harm others.

“Sorry old chap, but I was only trying to fart! I didn’t mean to kill your chicken!”

So why is this problematic? By some estimates as many as 40% of cases in court are prosecutions for witchcraft. As in early Salem and in silly Monty Python films, merely an accusation can land a person in court. Just as in other unenlightened times in history, children and marginalized members of society- in this case pygmies- are often the ones blamed for hexing their neighbors or changing into an animal form. Because the laws actually give credence to the accusers, even lawyers s believe in shapeshifting and death curses.

How do you know she is a witch?

She turned me into a newt!

A person not wanting to appear guilty of the charges must avoid nervousness at the trial. Fidgeting or looking at the wrong person at the wrong time might give a judge enough reason to presume guilt. Since there isn’t usually any evidence, the judge becomes the final arbiter of guilt, based on his own opinion of whether or not the defendant “looks guilty.”

The actual penal code for the “practice of charlatanism and sorcery” allows for a fine and up to ten years in prison. For once being desperately poor is a good thing, for the town can’t afford to maintain a jail, thus giving the accused a bit of a break.

There is no rest for the wicked in other parts of Africa. Take superstition and add a healthy dose of Christian fundamentalist zeal, mix it with a brush of insanity and sprinkle with power and you have Nigerian witch hunter Helen Ukpabio.

As inane and backward as the penal code of the Azande sounds, by making witchcraft illegal there is a civil recourse. Even a stint in jail and a heavy fine is better fate than what awaits a witch discovered by Helen Ukpabio. The ministry actively seeks confessions from people, encouraging parents to find their own children guilty. After branding a person as a witch, Ukpabio “delivers” them from their sins. By her own confession the renegade evangelist has “delivered” over 20,000 witches in this way.



Nwanaokwo Edet, 9, whose father forced him to drink acid days after the family’s pastor denounced the child as a witch, lying in a hospital bed in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. He died from his injuries one month later.

Ukpabio has garnered fame and notoriety for herself by advocating the torture and abuse of children. Her book, Unveiling the Mysteries of Witchcraft condemns children to this fate by claiming that toddlers who cry in the night, or are “always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan.”

Her instructional film End of the Wicked, shows how the devil captures children’s souls. If the acting by the “devil” seems a bit over the top, the film has seen some success in persuading some parents that kids with genuine health problems or typical childhood behaviors are possessed.

Does it occur to this insane woman that with malaria endemic and hunger rampant in most of Africa, delirium and ill health are a way of life for many poor children? If it does, it takes a back seat to her lust for glory and acclaim. And of course, the money. Getting an exorcism isn’t cheap.

The documentary Saving Africa’s Witch Children follows Gary Foxcroft, founder of Stepping Stones Nigeria, a charity for children displaced and disfigured by the extreme tactics of the witch hunters. These poor kids, stigmatized by Ukpabio as witches, are subjected to horrific “exorcisms” They are

splashed with acid, buried alive, dipped in fire — or abandoned roadside, cast out of their villages because some itinerant preacher called them possessed.

After the documentary was released, international attention focused on Nigeria. To their credit, other Nigerian Christian organizations denounced the witch hunters, “condemning the falsehood, exploitation and inherent deception in modern-day Nigerian Pentecostalism which sees the gospel used to deceive the gullible.”

The legal system seems just as uninterested in prosecuting her as it does prosecuting pedophile priests. Ms Ukpabio could improve her reputation through re-distributing all of the wealth amassed through this cruelty to children and aiding the societies damaged by her actions. Instead she uses her wealth and influence to counter-sue- everyone from the government trying to outlaw witch hunts to documentary filmmaker Gary Foxcroft, labeling her opponents as racist, or “anti-African”. She claims that the Children’s Rights and Rehabilitation Network, the school for abandoned children run by Sam Itauma and featured in Foxcroft’s documentary, is “a 419 scam“.

Although one “Bishop”, Sunday Ulup-Ayawas was arrested and charged with murder after confessing to killing over 100 accused child witches, Helen Ukpabio remains free and unrepentant, never attempting to ameliorate the plight of stigmatised children. Even more galling is that American churches continue to support her mission! She was in Houston speaking at a revival for Glorious Praise Ministries just last week.

Bad enough that America ignore the pleas of a starving nation, but to aid and abet a monster like Helen Ukpabio in her misguided mission is criminal. No person or group has the right to compromise the future and comfort of innocent children on the platform of some obscene religious doctrine.

More information here at the International Humanist and Ethical Union