CRARN RENEWS CAMPAIGN AGAINST CHILD WITCH-HUNT

Culled from AllVoices.com

Photo Gallery of the Event

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Okobo is one of the thirty-one local government areas of Akwa Ibom State, in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. With 91 villages and five clans, it is a community with rich cultural heritage and the people are exceptionally hospitable. But being one of the villages in the Oron axis, it also has it fare share in the stigmatisation of both children and aged people mostly women as witches and wizards. The Child’s Right and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) working with Young Humanistas Network (YHN), an Ibadan based human right group and supported by HAMU, a Norwegian based humanist group, took the campaign against child witch stigmatization and abandonment to the area last week.

It was a one-day community dialogue with the theme: Building Local Support to Stop Child Witch Stigmatization and Abandonment organised with Okobo community stakeholders. The event which was attended by market women, family heads, clan heads, village heads, youth, women and community leaders as well as the representative of the Paramount of Okobo, His Royal Majesty F.O.U. Antigha 1.

The two officials of the Norwegian based humanist organization; Humanist Action for Human Rights | International Humanist (HAMU), Bjorn Hansen and Gunner Olafsen were however baffled at heated debate of witchcraft belief which the participants took on the organisers. They noted that with such fierce debate, there was greater need for persistent campaign in the area to uproot the deeply held belief in witchcraft.

Some of the participants who spoke at the interactive session were against the practice of child witch stigmatization, abandonment and torture. Equally, some freely expressed their belief in witchcraft but were unsure of how to relate it with the problem in the face of their belief.

A female participant who also offered to be a community volunteer narrated her experience three abandoned children who used to take refuge at a local market in the area. She averred that the children were have suffered various forms of abuses as there was there no assistance offered to them by any one since they were believed to be withes. A combined team of CRARN-YHN rescue team was dispatched to rescue the children. They did not however meet the children who were said to have roamed to another location in search of food.

Similarly, a report was also received of two abandoned children at a place called Ekeya, a community in the area. Effort to locate the children that same day did not yield any dividends as they were said to have gone to the bush to scout for sustenance.

Mr Yemi Ademowo, head of the Young Humanistas Network (YHN) assured his organisation willingness to partner the community to curb the abuse of children in the area. He called on the community to treat the children as normal human beings.

The representative of the paramount ruler, Chief F.O.U. Antigha who spoke on behalf of the paramount ruler and Okobo Traditional Rulers Council resolved that the problem of child witch stigmatization and abandonment would be given serious attention at the traditional rulers’ council meeting and far-reaching decisions taken to check the menace. He called on members of the public to rise up and challenge the erroneous belief of witchcraft which according to him has also led to some family feuds.

Eleven participants of the event offered to volunteer to work with CRARN and YHN in the local community to rescue such children and campaign for their right.

One of the participants, a woman leader in the area, Mrs. Sarah Bassey thanked the organisers for putting on the event and called for to revisit the community to keep refreshing the minds of the people about the obnoxious practice.

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