Kivu Children Accused of Sorcery
IWPR journalist and local trainee set out to report on efforts to combat alarming form of child abuse.
Kivu Children Accused of Sorcery
IWPR journalist and local trainee set out to report on efforts to combat alarming form of child abuse.
I wake up in Uvira, a town on Lake Tanganyika in South Kivu, feeling tense for no reason.
It’s hot and the fan is not working. I miss the fresh air of Goma and the familiarity of my room there. I hate hotels. Well I hate bad hotels anyway. An ice cold shower and a dreadful breakfast later, the feeling of apprehension is still there, clenching my stomach a little. Kiza, the journalist from Uvira I am working with on a story about children accused of sorcery, finally arrives.
She has just finished her morning shift at her radio station. We have a coffee together and start planning the day. It’s going to be intense - we have much to do to get the report done before I leave tomorrow morning. We decide to start with a visit to the police station to interview the head of the Women and Children Protection Unit.
I have huge respect for policemen and women working in this unit. They are underfunded, but dedicated and often do an impressive job despite the conditions they work in. As in Bukavu, the head of the unit is a woman - the no-nonsense kind, with a big heart. We arrive at around 7.30 am, and Captain Ursule Karumba Biralo has already been at work in her office - more of a mud hut than a police station - for an hour.
Biralo is very positive about prospects for children in the region. Since a clause prohibiting accusations of the sorcery being made against children was included in child protection law, she says her work has become much easier and the number of such cases has come down drastically. Still, she says, there have been at least five cases in Uvira alone so far this year.
Children accused of sorcery are tortured by their community, sometimes by their own parents, Biralo tells us while getting out her mobile phone. She shows us pictures taken a few days ago. One of them in particular is profoundly upsetting. Two small hands, palms raised up towards the camera, are covered in blisters and blood.
“He was burnt with an iron,” said Biralo before adding that his own mother did it to him. The picture makes me feel sick but it is my ears I cannot believe. His own mother! But I should not be surprised really. I have heard many terrible stories of ill-treated children from my mother who worked for several years in an organisation protecting children in France. But somehow, in Africa, where family is such an important institution, this seems harder to understand.
To find out what triggers such extreme behaviour in parents, Kiza and I head off on a motorbike to Christian Mushilehe’s office. Christian is the executive secretary of Aide aux Femmes et Enfants pour le Développement de l’Environnement Endogène, AFEDE, an organisation that promotes women and children’s rights.
Christian receives us immediately and kindly offers us two sucré, the local name for sodas. We talk about recent cases of enfants sorciers, of which I will spare you the details.
“I don’t understand what makes grown-up parents capable of such violence, based on such a silly excuse. I mean, do they really believe their child is a witch or a sorcerer? Obviously, they never saw their child practicing witchcraft, so what makes them believe that?” I asked Christian.
“It is mainly poverty,” he replied, “that, and some of the churches here.”
Poverty, he tells us, makes loss unacceptable for many people. “If a husband dies for example, the family loses its main source of income and desperate relatives look for a scapegoat,” he explained. One of the children may then be accused of killing his father through witchcraft, tortured, and thrown out on the street.
Christian explained that certain unconventional churches, with little connection to mainstream Christian practice, seek to attract new members by pretending to “cure” children of sorcery.
“They convince parents that there is something wrong with their child. Maybe the kid is a little unruly. Or maybe he has a very strong imagination and he is inventing stories for fun. People here can be credulous and superstitious. It does not take much to convince them that their child is possessed,” he said.
Exorcism consists principally of a priest screaming at or even beating the child deemed to be possessed – a traumatic experience which they find hard to overcome.
We thank Christian for his insights and ask him if it is possible to speak with a child who has been the victim of such treatment, or to his parents. Christian offers to meet me in Bukavu on my way back to Goma and organise an interview with a sixteen-year-old they have helped to get off the street after he was accused by his relatives of being a sorcerer following his uncle’s death.
The interview never took place unfortunately, as I found myself stuck on the road the day we were supposed to meet, because of two flat tires. But that’s another story.
As we are producing a report for the IWPR programme Face à la Justice, we go to a local court to find out what is happening to those who accuse children of sorcery. After much delay and frustration, we are eventually granted an interview with the general prosecutor, but he barely acknowledges us.
“Excuse me sir, but could you let us know if you actually have the time for an interview, or whether there is a better time to come back later today,” I asked, annoyance probably a little too evident in my tone. “Don’t push me,” he barked at me.
I try to explain I am merely trying to save everyone time but only receive a string of angry reprimands. His tone leaves me stunned for a couple of seconds, then I decide I have had enough. This is not a good start and I do not see the point of wasting our time with him anymore.
I get up. “Nevermind sir, we will interview someone who is willing to communicate with us,” I said and we left the office.
As Kiza and I are walking out of the court, the prosecutor screams something in Swahili to the guard at the entrance, who stops us from leaving and violently pushes us back inside. Suddenly, the situation is becoming very scary and Kiza looks afraid.
We are taken to the president of the court. Inside, the prosecutor makes a scene, saying we did not show him due respect, and Kiza is trembling with fear. The president of the tribunal looks concerned but reassuringly tries to calm down his colleague.
I thought I was in for some kind of lecture but, after listening to the prosecutor for nearly 15 minutes, the president simply tells me to be more patient in future and apologises for the way we were treated by the guard. I am in such shock I simply nod and we are escorted out of the office.
“What happened just there,” I asked Kiza, while we drink a coke under a tree on the street, trying to wind down. “He was mad you did not abide by his rules and wanted to show his superiority. People here have hours to waste so he can make them wait forever. And you are a muzungu (the Swahili name for a white person) - a young muzungu - so he probably wanted to show he is important or something,” she told me.
We laugh about it, nervously, but I wonder, what I was supposed to do? Let him scream at us as much as he wanted and wait for hours? Things could have gotten out of hand there if the president had not been a reasonable man.
We walk back to the hotel, where we have a lunch of foufou and sombe, a local dish of white maize paste that one dips in boiled manioc leafs. Still in shock, we discuss our experience. “You know, we are women too, so he probably did not like it when we stood up to him. You have to learn to shut up here,” Kiza said. “Is that what you do to get by?” I asked her. “Yes, you have to,” she said. I shake my head and feel exhausted. How women can have the strength to become journalists in this country, I don’t know. It is humbling.
Melanie Gouby is the producer of IWPR’s Face à la Justice programme in DRC and coordinates IWPR's journalism production and training in he region.
