Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Persecution of "Child Witches" in Kinshasa


This blog post is over a year old now, but it is worth a look. A couple days ago Brian McLaren was in town, and suggested I read the book "Planet of Slums." In it, Mike Davis writes of the rising superstitious and dangerous fears in the Kinshasa slums against children who are presumed to be Witches. Charismatic Churches are theorized to be partially (maybe mostly) to blame. I would not be surprised to find this blame to hit the mark. Who will rise up to stop this insanity?!

Check out the blog post at No More Big Wheels.

2 comments:

cern said...

Who indeed! The problem is that once that kind of mentality sets in, anyone that tries to confront it is branded bewitched/possessed. Even when hard evidence that contradicts the superstitions is presented, those who hold the superstitions will cry conspiracy and, again some sort of demon possession.

I don't know what the solution is. But it can't hurt to have Christians speaking out against the promotion of that kind of superstition.

BB

Mike

Yewtree said...

Thanks for mentioning this, Phil.

There's an excellent charity called Stepping Stones Nigeria that helps these children.

Some general charities are also helping them, but they are not at the top of the priority lists for the big charities.

I have created a facebook group to promote awareness of this issue. If you're on facebook, please join and invite your friends.