Congo child sorcery abuse on rise

[Happy Times]

Yeah, i know, WTF... :roll: By David Bamford
BBC News


A report has highlighted what it calls an alarming rise in the abuse of boys and girls accused of sorcery in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Such children are physically abused and end up on the streets of the capital, Kinshasa, Human Rights Watch says.

The organisation has been examining the plight of children in the country.

Its report says that about 70% of the street children appear to be outcasts from their family having been accused of sorcery.

The report cites many cases where boys and girls had been physically and emotionally abused at home, segregated from other children and forced out of school.

Orphans or children with step-parents are said to be especially vulnerable to accusations - made by surviving relatives - that they are sorcerers responsible for the family's misfortunes.

Children who are HIV positive are also susceptible, with some people believing that children can infect their parents with AIDS by using magic spells.

Human Rights Watch says that self-styled pastors are employed to rid children of their alleged sorcery using torture, beatings and the denial of food.

In the meantime, the authorities in Kinshasa are accused of periodically carrying out mass roundups of the street children, beating and abusing them, on the basis of a law dating back to colonial times that forbids children from begging.

Human Rights Watch calls on the Congolese government to protect the children and enforce a provision of the new constitution that specifically forbids accusing them of sorcery. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4877722.stm

[Sixpack]

Like we agreed here all along:

Religion can be a very dangerous thing, especially in the minds of morons.

:-?

[Torplexed]

Ahhhh the 21st Century. Cell phones, Ipods, space probes to the outer planets. Vast majority of humanity still mired in the voodoo world.

Sometimes ya wish the disparity would even itself out at some point. :-?

[Konovalov]

It's interesting that you mention this because late last night on BBC I watched a program on this issue. Basically in the Congo there is a belief in witchcraft and in this is the idea of a person suffering from a thing called "kindoki". At least that is what I think it was called. This "kindoki" is kind of like a person being under the spell of evil spirits or of being a witch. Now the traditional way of dealing with this within their culture was by giving the person some simple tribal herbal medicines such as ground tree bark and so on. The problem began though when this was mixed with Evangelical Christianity according to the researcher and presenter of this BBC documentary, Sociologist Dr Richard Hoskins, of Kings College London who lectures in African and African-derived religions.

What evangelical christian pastors have done is to fuse the traditional cultural ideas of witchcraft with evangelical christianity and out of this has come this crazy process of treating a person with kindoki. The person with kindoki is starved for days up to a week at a time with no food or water, injuries are inflcited on them from kicks and punches up to what i saw was truly disgusting.

In the worst example a pastor would have all these children alleged to "have" kindoki and they would all be waiting lined up. One after one they were undressed almost naked. They would be layed flat on the ground. Then while not under any anesthetic and fully awake they would have incisions made with a razor blade into their lower tummies below the belly button. Then the pastor would stand on this part of the belly and also use his hands pushing with tremendous force on the belly of the child with the intention of forcing out the evil spirit. And as if by magic the pastor would reveal in his hand a bit of evil flesh that has come out of the belly of the child and so she has been cured according to the pastor of the kindoki.

The reason this story was aired on the BBC was because the practice exists and is being performed on children within London. Otherwise families are flying their children back to Congo to have this so-called treatment on their children performed. There was one case here in London where a child was killed as a result of this extreme exorcism. Some additional articles here:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2025330,00.html
http://www.newhumanist.org.uk/volume119issue2_more.php?id=589_0_26_0_C
http://www.nospank.net/n-o68r.htm

[Konovalov]

Vast majority of humanity still mired in the voodoo world.


If you had the opportunity to view the program aired on the BBC then you would realise that voodoo has little to do with it. This is a dangerous fusion of evangelical christianity with old cultural Congo ideas of witchcraft.

[Sixpack]

evangelical christianity with old cultural Congo ideas of witchcraft.

Oh, there he goes again: Blaming it on Christianity as usual :roll:






Just messin'with ya :lol:

[TteFAboB]

This practice is more widespread, not limited to Congo or London.

It has to be cracked down upon and no sociologist or anthropologist allowed to defend their freedom of religion to practice child slaughter.

Gladly, these people are too few, comparatively speaking, to attract any political attention, hence today there are little to no one defending this kind of practice outside of Africa.

In Congo, leave it up to the UN and the Global Government to decide what they can or can't do, but elsewhere where any reasonable constitution is present, there must be no tolerance for this crime.

[Happy Times]

Oh they do it in London and elsewhere too? :o Yam, yam, multiculti tastes sooooo goood. :doh: http://www.bloggers4labour.org/images/multiculti.gif