Children of Nigeria

Channel 4 Two Channel 4 Dispatches films honoured at Rory Peck awards

2009-11-20T03:11:00.000-08:00

'A third of Burmese children were malnourished even before the cyclone hit' ... Dispatches: Orphans of Burma's Cyclone. Photograph: Channel 4

Two films shown on Channel 4's Dispatches won recognition at the Rory Peck awards last night.

Orphans of Burma's Cyclone, made by two anonymous journalists who risked 30-year jail terms to film the lives of children left without parents by last year's natural disaster, won the news award.

And Saving Africa's Witch Children, a portrayal of the plight of Nigerian children who are branded witches, won the Sony Professional Impact Award.

The Burmese film was the work of two cameramen from the media organisation Democratic Voice of Burma – known only as "Z" and "T" – who secretly followed eight orphans struggling to rebuild their lives after the devastation wrought by Cyclone Nargis.

Six months after filming the documentary, T was arrested, and last week, after four months in jail, he was told he would be charged with the new offence of filming without government permission. It was shot on location in Burma between May 2008 and March 2009 for the Oxford-based production company Quicksilver Media.

"Despite all the dangers, they still created a film narrative," said the judges for the awards, which celebrate the work of freelance newsgatherers around the world. "It was a journey for each of the individual families – and you went on that journey with them."

Saving Africa's Witch Children was the work of Dutch film-maker Joost van der Valk, who partly funded the project.

His film, which has previously won a Bafta and International Emmy for current affairs, followed the work of Englishman Gary Foxcroft, who has devoted his life to helping so-called "witch" children in Nigeria who are abandoned, tortured, starved and sometimes murdered.

The film led to the arrest of several pastors and prompted the local state government to declare the branding of children as witches illegal.

Van der Valk's 60-minute film was shot between February and May last year for Red Rebel Films, a partnership between the Dutchman and former BBC documentary maker Mags Gavan.

"Its subtle and restrained camerawork doesn't get in the way of telling what is a difficult and harrowing story," the judges said.

The features award was given to Russian cameraman Kazbek Basayev for his film about the conflict in South Ossetia.

Commissioned and broadcast by Reuters Video News, Basayev's film was the first to show the burning of Georgian villages under Russian control.

"He was dealing with a population under stress, a foreign power, tanks, and burning buildings but in the middle of all that he managed to convey the human face of conflict with a series of thoughtful and beautifully composed shots," the judges said.

guardian.co.uk

Nigeria: Why Calabar Was Chosen for Child Rights Convention - Unicef Boss

2009-11-19T17:11:00.000-08:00

Makurdi — Head of the 'A' Field Office of the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF), Enugu, Mrs Pelusi Ntambirweki, has said that the celebration of the 20th Anniversary of the Child Rights Convention (CRC) would take place in Calabar on November 20.

Mrs Ntambirweki explained at the recently concluded review of UNICEF activities that Calabar was chosen for the celebration because of the state government's interest in thE implementation of the Child Rights Act and the struggle to remove the stigmatization of children dubbed witches.

She also said Cross River state has been working towards reducing child and maternal mortality and commended the governor's wife for championing the program.

The assistant country representative of UNICEF said the state has evolved programmes for the protection of vulnerable children and noted that UNICEF was invited to make inputs into the 2010 budget so that it would be child centered. She disclosed that the governor's wife has de-warmed over 180,000 children in the state and thanked her for also fighting against gender discrimination.

allAfrica

Child’s Rights Law... Too Much Talk, Little Implementation

2009-11-19T16:29:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow November 20, the world will celebrate 20 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. For many in Nigeria, it is an opportunity to look at the states that have passed the law protecting children and the level of implementation of the act. However, according to THISDAY investigation, in as much as some states have passed the Act, a lot is still need to be done to liberate the Nigerian child. ROLAND OGBONNAYA writes

Ifeoma (not her real name) is a 10-year old girl. She leaves with her aunty on Asata Street, Enugu. This Thursday morning, Ifeoma should be in school like her other peers. No, instead, she was hawking Okpa, a local delicacy in one of the motor parks in the city. She told THISDAY that she has never been to school before even though she would have loved to go to school. She said she lost her father very early in life and things were not easy for her mother who looks after her other siblings in a village near Nsukka, hence she had to leave with her aunty. She said the arrangement between her mother and the aunty before she came to the town was that she would go to school while assisting the mother’s sister to look after the children.

But this morning, instead of being in school, Ifeoma sweats under the heaviness a tray-full of Okpa delicately balanced on her head as she hawked the food around the major motor parks in the Coal City. She still believes that one day she would go to school and become an actress like her idol Genevieve Nnaji.

The case of little Miss Rose Otubo, an eleven-year-old teenage girl is more pathetic. Rose who is from Effum in Ohaukwu Local government Area of Ebonyi State was sentenced to seven years imprisonment by a Magistrate Court sitting in Effium. Her sentence, for many epitomised how subtle and cruel the country’s legal system is against the rights of the child.

Rose ordeal came to the open when the wife of the Ebonyi State Governor, Mrs. Josephine Elechi visited Abakaliki Prisons. In one of her visits to the prison, the woman was alarmed that an 11-year-old girl was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and put in prison instead of a remand home. She immediately drew the attention of the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development.

Narrating her story Rose said, “the incident began in 2007, when I was taken to a distant cousin, one Mr. Nicholas Otubo by the man who claimed to be my father Mr. Nweke Nwochi when I was just 11 years old on the excuse that I was very stubborn”. According to her, “few months later, my foster mother accused me of stealing her N10, 000 and I was immediately dragged to an Effium Magistrate Court in Ohaukwu Local Government Area, which at the end sentenced me to seven years imprisonment.”

Rose stated said at the Magistrate Court, the charges against her were not properly explained before she pleaded guilty, adding that she only took her foster mother’s N200 to buy a loaf of bread as she was being starved even in the face of tedious day-to-day hawking. There are many children like Ifeoma and Rose who are daily abused by biological or foster parents across the country despite an existing law protecting Nigerian children from such inhuman treatment.

There has been a very serious neglect of the rights of the child in every aspect in the country even from the judiciary. Many children have been sentenced to prison without due respect to the fundamental human rights and the convention on the rights of the child like in the case of Rose.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted and ratified by nations, including Nigeria and accession by General Assembly resolution 44/25 of November 20, 1989. Exactly 20 years ago tomorrow, countries present at the Convention, agreed that in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.

Bearing in mind that the people of the United Nations have, in the Charter, reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights and in the dignity and worth of the human person, and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom. Recognising that the United Nations has, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the International Covenants on Human Rights, proclaimed and agreed that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth therein, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status,
Recalling that, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations proclaimed that childhood is entitled to special care and assistance, and convinced that the family, as the fundamental group of society and the natural environment for the growth and well-being of all its members and particularly children, should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance so that it can fully assume its responsibilities within the community. It also recognised that the child, for the full and harmonious development of his or her personality, should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.

In order to protect the rights of children some states passed the Child’s Rights Law. While some states went ahead to put structures in place for the implementation of the law, many other states in the country have not deem it fit to push for the passage of the act, despite local and international pressures. Last week, THISDAY visited four states in the south east of Nigeria—Enugu, Ebonyi, Abia and Imo to assess their performance in respect of the law. Enugu State House of Assembly passed the bill, but has not been signed into law by Governor Sullivan Chime on the excuse that he does not want to sign any law that will be difficult to implement.

He implored the assembly to look at the document once again. THISDAY was at the office of the Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Mr. Chuks Ugwoke for explanation the position of the bill, but was told he was away on official assignment. Same brickwall was met at the office of the state Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice.

Apart from Enugu, Imo and Abia States have passed the act through their state House of Assemblies, and are at different levels of implementation. While there is the zeal by the Abia State government to implement the act by setting up the family court and other structures, there is apathy on the side of the law enforcement agencies and other allied government bodies to make the law work. Ebonyi State, which bears the burden of child trafficking, street hawking by children are yet to pass the act.

THISDAY gathered in Abakaliki that the state House of Assembly passed the bill but was not accented to by the former governor and present Minister of Education, Dr. Sam Egwu before he left office. The present governor, Mr. Martin Elechi, on his part said he would not sign a law that was passed by an Assembly other than the one during his administration. As a result, the bill has been returned to the state house of Assembly for fine-tuning and would soon be passed into law, according to sources at the state house of assembly. The unfortunate thing is that while the legislators battle with the fine-tuning of the bill, many children of Ebonyi are trafficked and abused.

In Imo State, the State Assembly passed the bill in 2004 as Law No 6, which was meant to provide for children in the state and the implementation has been zero due to government’s law of direction, understanding of the law and the political will to implement it. At major markets and motor parks in Owerri, the state capital, children are used as hawkers while child labour is rampant. Abia’s case is not too different despite giant strides made.

Speaking at the opening of the 2009/2010 legal year in Umuahia, the Abia State Chief Judge, Hon. Justice S.E. Imo, confirmed that though Abia is one of the states in the country to pass the Child’s Rights Law, the benefit to the child offender derivable from the law cannot be enjoyed without a good remand home facility. “We also have a juvenile court where persons under the child rights law are tried, but unfortunately, children who are tried under this law or even in the regular court, are remanded in prison custody with adults. This should not be so,” Imo said.

The chief judge said it is very necessary and urgent that the government provides a remand home so that these children could be reformed rather than ruined, while in custody with adult criminals. “I am told there is an old remand home in Aba that only requires renovation and refurbishing. The governor may direct that the place be rehabilitated soonest,” he said.

The Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Mrs. Salamatu Hussein Suleiman, in a meeting with women, children and other vulnerable groups in Umuahia recently, expressed happiness that Abia is one of the 22 states that have passed the child rights law. She further commended the state for putting in place implementation mechanisms for effective implementation of the law, like the implementation committee put in place as well as a family court, a prerequisite for the implementation of the law.

Her wish was that with the passage of the law and its subsequent implementation, the state would guarantee the rights of children, restore their confidence and self esteem and improve their status.” It will enable children, including those with special needs to enjoy rights to survival, development, protection and participation, as it provides special measures for their care and protection.

“I wish to implore you to continue to support and explore all necessary strategies, structures and mechanisms to further implement the provisions of the law, especially the allocation of adequate and sufficient resources for the implementation of the law. Strategies that would ensure widespread awareness of the law should be vigorously pursued as well as capacity building of the judiciary to effectively enforce the provisions of the law in the interest of the children of this great state,” Mrs. Suleiman said.

The clamour for the speedy passage of the Child Right Act became very paramount in different parts of the country with an onerous task on the different State Houses of Assembly to initiate the bill not just as an act of making law, but also as a matter of saving the Nigerian children. Considering the vulnerability of Nigerian child and in accordance with the principles proclaimed in the charter of the United Nations, recognising the inherent dignity and of the equal rights of all members of human family especially the women and children, the call for the right of child became more appealing, yet inevitable.

The heart warming call for the child right act and the need to extend particular care to the child was first stated in the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child of 1924 and in the Declaration of the rights of the child adopted by the General Assembly on November 20, 1959, which was subsequently recognised in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. UNICEF and other bodies like USAID have been at the vanguard for the law to be passed to give the Child Rights act a legal frame work as well as to reduce the incessant abuses on the Nigerian Child.

In Ebonyi State, for example, before the advent of the missionaries who preached against the killing of twins, it was predominantly seen in Abakaliki and other parts of Ebonyi State that the obsolete tradition almost remained indelible as some of the people, especially those in the rural area still held tenacious to that tradition.

In a bid to nip the cancer on the bud and other violence against children, the Ebonyi State House of Assembly embraced without any hesitation and expeditiously passed the bill into law, thereby establishing the Child Right Act as a law binding on every parents and guardians on the need to protect the vulnerable children. Unfortunately the former governor, Dr. Sam Egwu, did not accent to the law. His predecessor, Martins Elechi refused to sign the law because “I cannot sign any law that an assembly that is not within my tenure passed.” Meanwhile, the law has been sent back to the Assembly for “fine-tuning.” Before the attempt to pass the law, Ebonyi was a fertile place where child abuse reigned, ranging from sexual abuse on the children, child trafficking, street hawking and more especially taking away to other parts of the country as maids where they are often exposed to other different dangers.

Going by the Declaration of Geneva Convention on the Rights of the Child, there was a clear case of defiance from the fundamental human rights in Ebonyi State then often precipitated and by lack of education and civilisation, yet there was a clear number of children regularly whisked away to other parts of the state on child trafficking.

There were agents whose job was to get the children out from their parents with mouth-watering promises that the children were going to drink from the chalice of qualitative education, which apparently, their parents were not able to afford, only to be subjected to street hawking and nursing babies at home. Early this year, the men of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense (NSDC) intercepted a truck-full of children of different sex, colour and ages. The agents were trying to ship these children outside the state for possible delivery to their different buyers.

That was the situation of the children in Ebonyi state and still remain the problem of the Nigerian Child in some of the states that have not passed the Child Right Act into law to establish that it is now an offence that a child under your care has no access to freedom and education.

Any state like Ebonyi that has not passed the child right act into law stands the chance of having some obligation to protect the child from all forms of maltreatments by parents or others responsible for the care of the child and establish the appropriate social programmes for the prevention of abuse and the treatment of the victims.

In accordance with the states’ obligations to the children, the state is obliged to provide special protection for the child deprived of the family environment and to ensure that the appropriate alternative family institutional placement is available in such cases considering the child’s cultural background. The westernisation of Christianity on their own side is not helping matters with their demon crazy Christianity where children are subjected to different kinds of torture often come from allegation that they are witches and wizards. They are subjected to physical and mental torture to cast out the witchcraft or wizardry in them.

Based on the Convention on the Right of the Child adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nation on November 20, 1989, “no child shall be subjected to torture, or cruel treatment or punishment, unlawful arrest or deprivation of liberty. Both capital punishment and life imprisonment without the possibility of release are prohibited for offences by person below 18 years”

According to UNICEF A Field, Mrs. Pelucy Ntabirweki, children all over the world are subjected to different inhuman treatments with 60 per cent coming as a result of religious fanatism and fundamentalism like accusing a child of witchcraft.

Mrs. Ntabirweki also during one of her numerous visits to the wife of Ebonyi State Governor, Chief Mrs. Josephine Elechi said children are the nucleus of “our cosmological existence and therefore deserved to be taken care of through protection and by giving them a bright future. The UNICEF boss also said that any society that takes the children’s future and rights like child’s play always find themselves at the dungeon of chaos and anarchy, adding that children are the fruit from the Lord.

“The child has the right to protection from all forms of exploitation be it sexual prejudicial to any aspects of the child and the state has the obligation to have the rights of the child protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous to interfere with the child’s education and so on,” she said.

In one of the resolutions made at both the Geneva Declaration and the Convention of the rights of the child, it frowned at the way and manner children are being exposed to dangers and all sorts of subjugation. It took the quick intervention of the Federation of International Women Lawyers (FIDA) and the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development following the directive of the Wife of the Governor, Mrs. Elechi to ensure the release of the teenage girl who was languishing at the Abakaliki Prison for over one year.

According to the Probation Officer, Child Development Department of the Women Affairs Ministry, Mr. Innocent Aloke, there was a petition to the Registrar of the State High Court concerning little Miss Rose’s case. “After failing in our effort to include Rose in the Governor’s amnesty list in 2007, FIDA and the state Ministry of Women Affairs appealed against the judgment of the Magistrate Court. At the end of the legal procedure, little Miss Rose was discharged and acquitted few weeks ago.”

After listening to both parties in a long argument, a representative of FIDA, Ebonyi state in the case, Mrs. Nnenna Onuoha agreed with the Women Affairs Ministry that Mrs. Obaji should take custody of Rose, since Mr. Nwochi did not visit the girl through out her stay in Prison and the remand home. These and more were some of the problems the children are being subjected to most of them often come through a broken family where the parents of the child are separated with a problem of who is going to keep the child just as it was in the case of little Rose.

In an interview with THISDAY, the newly sworn in Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Development in Ebonyi State, Dr. Nora Alo said the state government was committed to protecting the rights of the children and indeed the women in the state, adding that several programmes were being introduced to that effect. She stated that under her administration. It would be unthinkable for anybody to engage in child labour and trafficking as was the case in the past as the state government would always try to abide by the law already passed by the state House of Assembly. How far this assertion could go is better left in the hands of time.

In many states particularly in the north, girls are denied education on the basis of sex. Parents, who do this claim that women have been naturally assigned the responsibility of taking care of homes. Where is it written that women must be treated as second-class citizens? Nigeria ratified the United Nations Child Rights Convention in 1991 and later passed it into law as the Child Rights Act. Since then, 22 states have adopted or adapted the Act but the implementation has continued to be a problem.

Article 27 of the Child Rights Convention says children have right to a standard of living that is good to meet their physical and mental needs while article 28 provides that children have right to education just as primary education should be free. In the HIV/AIDS ravaged states, no policy has been set out to take care of the children, who have lost their parents. What we see is that such children are put in orphanage homes and trained in the primary schools. Of what burden would it be to the government to train orphans up to university level?

In some cases, government officials like Abia State say there is no money but a lot of them keep cars that are not used for weeks or acquire houses nobody leaves in them. These days, in the streets of Umuahia and Aba and other satellite towns, juveniles are seen driving cars in the name of rich parents. Due to over-pampering, such children engage in cult activities because they call themselves "big boys". Kidnappers target children of the well to do so as to be given ransom. Child trafficking is a common feature in Abia, Imo, Enugu and Ebonyi States because some parents believe that they have to trade with them.

One prays and very fast too that the states that have not passed the law find the political will and courage to do that as well as implement it, while states like Ebonyi that has not passed it hast the pace to save children of the state from torture and abuse.

THISDAY ONLINE

Gambia: Country's Witch Hunt Activity Brought to African Commission

2009-11-18T07:59:00.000-08:00

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) has on Thursday 12th November, brought to the attention of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Right the gross human rights violations that are committed in The Gambia and some African countries because of the fear of witchcraft across the continent.

In their statement read by Mr. Leo Igwe, at the 46th ordinary Session of the African Commission at Sheraton Hotel, said the belief on witchcraft is strong, common and widespread in Africa. He said that over the years, claims of witchcraft have been used to abuse the universally recognized human rights enshrined in the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights. Mr. Leo stated that in many African countries, to call somebody a witch automatically makes the person unqualified for human rights protection. He argued that to accuse somebody of witchcraft is like passing a death sentence on that person. He indicated that those accused of witch craft are tortured, persecuted and killed. He added that those people are subjected to cruel, inhuman and de-grading treatment by gangs, mobs, pastors, witch doctors, parents and family members in the name of exorcising or to elicit confessions.

Mr. Leo asserted that those alleged to be witches and wizards are victims of jungle justice, extra-judicial killing, forced exile and disappearance. He posited that in African those abused in the name of witchcraft are mainly the vulnerable members of the population, the poor, the elderly, women, children and people with disabilities. He added that IHEU has received reports of witchcraft related human rights abuses in many counties across the region.

Mr. Leo pointed out that in The Gambia, the government agents and some witch doctors raided villages and homes, abducted hundreds of mainly elderly persons alleged to be witches and wizards, took them to some secret locations where they were force to drink concoctions. He stated that as a result some died after taking the substance, while others developed several health complications. He added that the state condoned witch hunt is in breach of Gambia's human rights obligations under the African Charter.

In Malawi, Leo said a Magistrate's Court has convicted two people for practicing witchcraft. He posited that in October, Emily (62) and James Kunjes (68) were sentenced to five years imprisonment with hard labor for killing two members of their community through magic. He asserted that in Kenya, at least 15 women suspected to be witches were killed last year in a deadly witch hunt that occurred in some parts of the country. He added that relatives of those alleged to be witches and wizards continue to live in fear.

He said in the Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands of children alleged to be witches and wizards have been driven out of their homes and forced to roam the streets.

In Nigeria, Leo said in the Cross River and Akwa Ibom States, children accused of witchcraft are abandoned, beaten, slashed with knives, bathed with acid or lynched by parents, family and community members. He said some of these so call children witches are claimed and starved, some have been tortured to death by unscrupulous pastors during deliverance ceremonies.

He added that human right activists working to defend the rights of those accused of witchcraft has been at risk. He said rights defenders have suffered attacks, threats, intimidation and harassment. He asserted that in July, agents of a self-proclaimed witch exercise and founder of the liberty Gospel Church, Helen Ukpabia, raided a center for the rehabilitation of child victims in Eket in Akwa Ibom State. He also stated that they attacked the organizers of a child rights conference in Calabar in Cross River State.

In Ghana, Leo said women accused of witchcraft are attacked, persecuted and killed. He stated that some of them fleeing persecution have taken refugees at a camp in Gambaga in the Northern Region. He pointed out that those alleged to be witches and wizards suffered similar fates in Angola, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leon, Liberia and so on. He indicated that the witch hunts in many African countries are not isolated attacks but an organized campaign, a silent and systematic elimination of any body alleged to be a witch or a wizard.

Mr. Leo urged and calls on the African Commission to issue a resolution condemning witch hunts and witchcraft related rights abuses in Africa.

He stated that IHEU request the Special Rapporteur on the Rights of Women in African, on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and internally displaced persons in Africa, on Human Rights Defenders in African to raise issues concerning witchcraft related abuses with State parties during their promotional mission.

IHEU calls on the government of The Gambia Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South African, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Liberia to fulfill their commitments under the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights by improving the quality of education, law enforcement and the justice system. IHEU urges all State parties to take all necessary legal and administrative measures to combat all human rights abuses that are committed in the name of witch hunts.

allAfrica.com

Repeal Repressive Media Laws - ACHPR Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression Tells Gambia Gov't

2009-11-16T01:35:00.000-08:00

The Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights, Madam Faith Pansy Tlakula, has called on the government of The Gambia to immediately decriminalize all repressive media laws in order to guarantee freedom of speech and freedom of expression in the country.

Madam Faith Pansy Tlakula made the statement on Saturday during the 46th Ordinary Session of the Commission, which kicked off in the Gambian coastal city of Brufut on Wednesday, November 11, 2009. She said the current media situation in the Gambia is unacceptable, and therefore urged Yahya Jammeh's government to repeal repressive laws and respect 'Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights'.

Tlakula also told the session that she had sent three letters to president Jammeh in June concerning the deterioration of press freedom in the country. In one of the letters, she said, president Jammeh's attention was drawn to the arrest and detention of 7 Gambian journalists, which seriously threatened free speech and undermined the Universal Declaration on human rights in Gambia. The concern of the lone female detainee and a nursing mother of a seven month old baby, Sarata Janneh-Dibba was raised in the letter,Tlakula told the session.

Ms Pansy Tlakula also asked president Jammeh in one of the letters, to withdraw threats made against Imam Baba Leigh, who happened to differ in opinion on the sensitive issue of female circumcision.

According to the Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression, a letter of appreciation was also sent to the Gambian leader after he had set the journalists free through a presidential pardon.

Although the Commission had asked the African Union to "authorize and provide extra-budgetary resources to the African Commission to ensure that the 46th Ordinary Session is convened and held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, or any other Member State of the African Union, in the event that [president Yahya Jammeh] does not withdraw his threats and the Government cannot guarantee the safety and security of the members and staff of the African Commission and the participants of the 46th Ordinary Session", president Jammeh never withdrew his threats. Click here to read the Commission's Resolution on Gambia, done in Dakar, Senegal, from October 5-11, 2009.

A day after the session opened in Brufut, the West African representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, Leo Igwe, brought the attention of the Commission to human rights violations in the Gambia when "government agents and some witch doctors from Guinea raided villages and homes, abducted hundreds of mainly elderly persons alleged to be witches and wizards, took them to some secret locations where they were tortured and forced to drink magical concoctions. Some died after taking the magical substance, while others developed severe health complications". Below is his entire statement in verbatim:

The Chairperson

The International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) would like to draw the attention of the Commission to gross human rights violations that are committed because of fear of witchcraft across the region.

In Africa , the belief in witchcraft is strong, common and widespread. Over the years, claims of witchcraft have been used to abuse the universally recognized human rights enshrined in the African Charter on Human and People's Rights. In many African countries, to call somebody a witch automatically makes the person unqualified for human rights protection. To accuse somebody of witchcraft is like passing a death sentence on that person. Those accused of witchcraft are tortured, persecuted and killed. They are subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by gangs, mobs, pastors, witch doctors, parents and family members in the name of exorcism or to elicit confessions. Those alleged to be witches and wizards are victims of jungle justice, extrajudicial killing, forced exile and disappearance.

In Africa those abused in the name of witchcraft are mainly the vulnerable members of the population—the poor, the elderly, women, children and people with disabilities.

IHEU has received reports of witchcraft related human rights abuses in many countries across the region.

In the Gambia, government agents and some witch doctors from Guinea raided villages and homes, abducted hundreds of mainly elderly persons alleged to be witches and wizards, took them to some secret locations where they were tortured and forced to drink magical concoctions. Some died after taking the magical substance, while others developed severe health complications. This state-sponsored witch hunt is in breach of Gambia 's human rights obligations under the African Charter.

In Malawi a magistrate's court has convicted two people for practicing witchcraft. In October, Emily (62) and James Kunjes (68) were sentenced to five years imprisonment with hard labour for killing two members of their community through magic. In Kenya, at least 15 women suspected to be witches were killed last year in a deadly witch hunt that occurred in some parts of the country. Relatives of those alleged to be witches and wizards continue to live in fear.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands of children alleged to be witches and wizards have been driven out of their homes and forced to roam the streets.

And in Nigeria, in Cross River and Akwa Ibom states, children accused of witchcraft are abandoned, beaten, slashed with knives, bathed with acid or lynched by parents, family and community members. Some of these so called child witches are chained and starved, some have been tortured to death by unscrupulous pastors during deliverance ceremonies. Also human rights activists working to defend the rights of those accused of witchcraft have been at risk. They have suffered attacks, threats, intimidation and harassment. In July, agents of a self-proclaimed witch exorcist and founder of the Liberty Gospel Church, Helen Ukpabio, raided a centre for the rehabilitation of child victims in Eket in Akwa Ibom state. They attacked the organizers of a child rights conference in Calabar in Cross River state.

In Ghana, women accused of witchcraft are attacked, persecuted and killed. Some of them fleeing persecution have taken refuge at a camp in Gambaga in the Northern Region. Those alleged to be witches and wizards suffer similar fates in Angola, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Liberia etc.The witch hunts in many African countries are not isolated attacks but an organized campaign, a silent and systematic elimination of anybody alleged to be a witch or a wizard.

IHEU calls on the Commission to issue a resolution condemning witch hunts and witchcraft related human rights abuses in Africa. IHEU requests the Special Rapporteurs on the Rights of Women in Africa, on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Internally displaced Persons in Africa, on Human Rights Defenders in Africa to raise issues concerning witchcraft related abuses with state parties during their promotional missions.

IHEU calls on the governments of the Gambia, Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, and Liberia to fulfill their commitments under the African Charter on Human and People's Rights by improving the quality of education, law enforcement and the justice system.

IHEU urges all state parties to take all necessary legal and administrative measures to combat all human rights abuses that are committed in the name of witch hunts.

Senegambia

PART 2 2010 Update: Saving Africa's Witch Children (Falsely Accused)

2009-11-07T13:15:00.000-08:00

Part 1 2010 Update: Saving Africa's Witch Children (Falsely Accused)

2009-11-07T13:14:00.000-08:00

Detained Nigerian girl found trying to strangle herself

2009-10-22T18:29:00.000-07:00

Immigration officials detained 10-year-old for second time against advice of experts

A 10-year-old Nigerian girl placed in immigration detention for a second time – despite warnings from experts that she might try to kill herself if she was incarcerated again – has been found trying to strangle herself.

Adeoti Ogunsola was spotted by guards at Tinsley House immigration removal centre (IRC) near Gatwick airport early on Sunday in the kitchen of the family quarters. The family's asylum claim has been refused and they are facing removal to Nigeria on Thursday.

Adeoti told the guards she would rather die in England than in Nigeria, where she believes her life will be at risk if she is returned. Her mother, Clementina Ogunsola, 35, whom she was sharing a room with, was asleep at the time. Mother and daughter were taken to hospital and later returned to Tinsley House.

"Adeoti is in a very bad state," said Clementina. "It's terrible to see her like this. She's crying a lot and has completely broken down."

The case comes at a time when there is mounting opposition to the government's policy of detaining child asylum seekers.

The Ogunsolas were detained in Yarl's Wood IRC in June and were later released. A report from a psychotherapist warned that Adeoti was suffering from complex post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of being detained and warned that if she was detained again her condition was so severe that she might attempt to kill herself.

Clementina was detained again in August but refused to reveal the whereabouts of Adeoti to prevent her being redetained. It later emerged that she was in the care of an aunt and for a while social services and the UK Border Agency (UKBA) allowed this arrangement to stand.

However, early last Thursday UKBA officials raided the aunt's home and dragged out a screaming Adeoti. Social services were present but Adeoti's aunt was not allowed to accompany her. A distressed Adeoti was reunited with her mother in Tinsley House and tried to kill herself three days later.

In a letter to the family's solicitors, UKBA officials said the circumstances were exceptional. The letter is dated 17 October and was sent hours before Adeoti made the suicide attempt. It quotes Dr Geraint Thomas, who acknowledged Adeoti's distress.

"Whilst aware of the potential for suicidal feelings that she may act upon we are maintaining close observations of her and believe we are able to safely maintain her within this environment," Thomas states in the UKBA letter.

Adeoti is a pupil at St Mary's Catholic primary school in Gillingham, Kent. The headteacher, Bernadette Long, is supporting the family's fight to remain in the UK.

She said Adeoti was "clearly traumatised" by her detention in June. "She was inconsolable about the thought of deportation in September 2008 when she first heard of it," said Long. "Since then Adeoti has had unsettled periods due to the worry and uncertainty. This has gone on for a whole year now and is an unnecessary act of mental cruelty which is affecting her emotional and mental wellbeing."

There have been many campaigns to end the detention of children in the UK, which currently occurs at a rate of 2,000 a year. Labour MP Chris Mullin is sponsoring an early day motion urging the government to adopt more humane arrangements for monitoring children whom UKBA wishes to remove from the country.

David Wood, strategic director of UKBA's criminality and detention group, said: "Treating children with care and compassion is a priority for the UK Border Agency.

"Whenever we take decisions involving children, their welfare comes first. That's why we have transformed our children's policy, ensuring in law a commitment to protect youngsters and keep them safe from harm. Their welfare is regularly monitored and medical staff are on site and their detention is reviewed.

"When the independent courts find a family has no need for protection we expect them to return home. If they refuse to leave voluntarily we have no choice but to enforce their removal, and this can include detaining children, but only as a very last resort."

Frank Arnold, clinical director of the Medical Justice Network, said: "The evidence is that this girl was redetained by UKBA against expert advice and retraumatised, causing severe harm. Our independent doctors have seen more than 20 children whose purely administrative detention has damaged them beyond any reasonable justification. The abusive jailing of innocent children should cease."

Clementina and Adeoti fear that if they return to Nigeria their lives will be at risk from a cult which allegedly killed two of Clementina's brothers. They are also concerned that Adeoti will be at risk of female genital mutilation from family members, which Clementina was forced to undergo.

The family's lawyers are seeking a stay of the removal.

guardian.co.uk

Child Rights Abuse - Product of Inefficient Leadership

2009-10-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

Godwin Akor — Recently, the United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF) organized a sensitization workshop for journalists in Benue, Bayelsa, Rivers, Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Ebonyi, Anambra, Imo and Abia states, which are under the organization's zonal office in Enugu

Main focus of the workshop was the Child Rights Act, which has been passed into law in nine of the ten states. The only state that is yet to adopt or adapt the Act is Enugu.

Enugu State's delay in passing the law worried participants at the workshop but the issue that was more worrisome was the neglect of children in the zone in spite of the signing of the Act into law in some states.

Whether children are on holiday or not, they are subjected to dehumanizing conditions through hawking. Some parents claim that their children hawk one item or another so as to get money for their school fees not knowing that the Child Rights Act (Law) prohibits such.

Even as some parents claim ignorance on the law, some state governments have not helped matters as the Child Rights Law has been kept in the cooler.

It is an offence under the law for parents to deny their children education but some children are kept at home and used as helpers instead of being given opportunity to exploit their environment for future relevance.

How many children lose their lives when they desperately cross the road to sell items to motorists and passengers on the highway?. How many children are subjected to torture when they fail to meet the expectation of their parents at the end of the day?.

There are cases of where some children are denied food because they fail to realise the expected amount of money from sales of goods hawked.

Nigeria ratified the United Nations Child Rights Convention in 1991 and later passed it into law as the Child Rights Act. Since then, 22 states have adopted or adapted the Act but the implementation has continued to be a problem.

In Benue State for instance, government officials woke up from slumber when children mobilised by Mrs. Yemisi Dooshima Suswam requested that their rights should be protected at the occasion of this year's African Day of the Child.

The children were promised that a sensitisation campaign would be carried out so that the people, including parents, would know about the Child Rights Act as passed by the House and signed into law by the governor.

This gave the children a ray of hope but since then, nothing has been done in that direction? This problem is not peculiar to Benue. In Cross River and Akwa Ibom states, children are being dubbed witches and sent out of homes..

If not for the sake of UNICEF, the affected children would be open to a lot of hazards. Since witchcraft is difficult to be tested scientifically, the best that can be done to children suspected to be involved is reformation.

In the states where children are hardly immunized against killer diseases, do the parents know that it is the rights of the children to be immunized? Article 24 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides that children have the right to good quality health care, clean water, nutritious food and clean environment.

Is it not true that many parents especially those in the villages tell their children to go to the bush to defecate when they are pressed?. How many children die yearly because of various diseases? United Nations records show that in Nigeria, more than one million children die yearly through such hazards.

In the HIV/AIDS ravaged states, no policy has been set out to take care of the children, who have lost their parents. What we see is that such children are put in orphanage homes and trained in the primary schools. Of what burden would it be to the government to train orphans up to university level?.

In some cases, government officials say there is no money but a lot of them keep cars that are not used for weeks. They also build houses without anybody living in them for years. These days, we see juveniles driving cars in the name of rich parents. Due to over-pampering, such children engage in cult activities because they call themselves "big boys".

Nigeria realises a lot of money from oil but there is poor management characterised by corruption. Some Nigerians became worried when Mrs Hilarry Clinton, United States Secretary of State berated the agencies set up to fight corruption but we are yet to see how the cases handled by Nuhu Ribadu were concluded.

During the administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) applied selective justice. If one says democracy in Nigeria is synonymous with corruption, the politicians would become uncomfortable but they display affluence at the expense of children's education.

Where did Obafemi Awolowo get money to introduce free education in Western Nigeria during his premiership?. When the Senate President, David Mark, was the Military Governor of Niger State, he made it compulsory for girls to go to school and resist the temptation of marrying early. Have the people of Niger State including the former Head of State, General Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) not continued to hold Mark in high esteem because of that singular achievement?.

How many children are roaming the streets because of Boko Haram and the Niger Delta problem?. Nigeria is so poor in keeping records. Birth registration is alien to many states, just as infant mortality has no record. If the states fail to evolve definite policies for the protection and care of children, why is the federal government not doing anything better?.

The universal basic education programme collapsed like a park of cards. Payment of teachers salaries is optional in Nigeria. Some states toy with the issue as if teachers are beggars. When ever there is strike in Nigeria, children suffer to the extent that their primary education foundation becomes so weak.

Kidnappers target children of the well to do so as to be given ransom. Child trafficking is a common feature in Nigeria because some parents believe that they have to trade with them.

So many young girls have become commercial sex workers because of the same reason. When someone dies in Nigeria, people cry so much because of the feeling that his children would suffer. Why should that be? Nigerians have the feeling that they have to take care of their children when they like not knowing that the law has not made their care optional.

Many people waste their money on alcohol on a daily basis and say "proudly" at beer parlours that their children have stopped schooling because of lack of school fees.

There are instances where some states are supposed to pay a counterpart fund of six million naira and access a UNICEF educational development fund of over N400 million but the matter is being trivialized.

Why has primary education collapsed, is it not because of lack of contribution from many states. Some state governments feel that when money is sourced through counterpart arrangement, it becomes difficult to pinch such money, so, they discourage such contribution.

On the matter of lack of care for Nigerian children, all the stakeholders are guilty. The government, parents, individuals and the society are all guilty because of the problem of the shifting of blames.

The United Nations (UN) has established so many agencies which it is funding with money from donor agencies. Many people are of the illusion that the UN mints money. The truth is that many countries and organizations that have less corrupt tendencies set aside some money for the assistance being given to less developed countries like Nigeria.

During the military era, there was less crime though the high echelon of the military enriched themselves so much that today, some of them can fund political parties. Today, it is due process and the rule of law. Why is it that some states find it difficult to pass the Child Rights Act?. Why is it that some states find it difficult to implement the law after its passage.

There are supposed to be community courts established for the trial of children who fail to fulfill their own part of the bargain. There are supposed to be implementation committees responsible for making the law to work. In how many states have these bodies been set up?. Benue state said it would sensitize the people and commence the implementation of the law. When would the sensitization programme start?

Today, children are being mixed with adults in detention. This makes the children to become hardened as they are subjected to an orientation that makes them to be more criminally minded. There are supposed to be remand homes but where are they?. Benue state had one in Gboko but it is in a sorry state. Many states do not know what is called a remand home which is supposed to be like a school of reformatory.

The challenge of giving the children a pride of place in Nigeria is enormous. All hands must be on deck to make this possible. If the society hinges its reason of not caring for the children on poverty, the vicious circle would never be broken. This is the time, the government and indeed, the citizens must rise to the occasion of giving hope to our children

allAfrica.com

Churches denounce African children as "witches"

2009-10-17T22:25:00.000-07:00

This Aug. 18, 2009 photo shows children accused of witchcraft carrying water at the Children's Rights and Rehabilitation Network in Eket, Nigeria. The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria's 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. (AP Photo/Sunday Alamba)

The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall.

His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It spilled as he struggled, burning away his face and eyes. The emaciated boy barely had strength left to whisper the name of the church that had denounced him - Mount Zion Lighthouse.

A month later, he died.

Nwanaokwo Edet was one of an increasing number of children in Africa accused of witchcraft by pastors and then tortured or killed, often by family members. Pastors were involved in half of 200 cases of "witch children" reviewed by the AP, and 13 churches were named in the case files.

Some of the churches involved are renegade local branches of international franchises. Their parishioners take literally the Biblical exhortation, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

"It is an outrage what they are allowing to take place in the name of Christianity," said Gary Foxcroft, head of nonprofit Stepping Stones Nigeria.

For their part, the families are often extremely poor, and sometimes even relieved to have one less mouth to feed. Poverty, conflict and poor education lay the foundation for accusations, which are then triggered by the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor on the make, said Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund.

"When communities come under pressure, they look for scapegoats," he said. "It plays into traditional beliefs that someone is responsible for a negative change ... and children are defenseless."

----

The idea of witchcraft is hardly new, but it has taken on new life recently partly because of a rapid growth in evangelical Christianity. Campaigners against the practice say around 15,000 children have been accused in two of Nigeria's 36 states over the past decade and around 1,000 have been murdered. In the past month alone, three Nigerian children accused of witchcraft were killed and another three were set on fire.

Nigeria is one of the heartlands of abuse, but hardly the only one: the United Nations Children's Fund says tens of thousands of children have been targeted throughout Africa.

Church signs sprout around every twist of the road snaking through the jungle between Uyo, the capital of the southern Akwa Ibom state where Nwanaokwo lay, and Eket, home to many more rejected "witch children." Churches outnumber schools, clinics and banks put together. Many promise to solve parishioner's material worries as well as spiritual ones - eight out of ten Nigerians struggle by on less than $2 a day.

"Poverty must catch fire," insists the Born 2 Rule Crusade on one of Uyo's main streets.

"Where little shots become big shots in a short time," promises the Winner's Chapel down the road.

"Pray your way to riches," advises Embassy of Christ a few blocks away.

It's hard for churches to carve out a congregation with so much competition. So some pastors establish their credentials by accusing children of witchcraft.

Nwanaokwo said he knew the pastor who accused him only as Pastor King. Mount Zion Lighthouse in Nigeria at first confirmed that a Pastor King worked for them, then denied that they knew any such person.

Bishop A.D. Ayakndue, the head of the church in Nigeria, said pastors were encouraged to pray about witchcraft, but not to abuse children.

"We pray over that problem (of witchcraft) very powerfully," he said. "But we can never hurt a child."

The Nigerian church is a branch of a Californian church by the same name. But the California church says it lost touch with its Nigerian offshoots several years ago.

"I had no idea," said church elder Carrie King by phone from Tracy, Calif. "I knew people believed in witchcraft over there but we believe in the power of prayer, not physically harming people."

The Mount Zion Lighthouse - also named by three other families as the accuser of their children - is part of the powerful Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria. The Fellowship's president, Ayo Oritsejafor, said the Fellowship was the fastest-growing religious group in Nigeria, with more than 30 million members.

"We have grown so much in the past few years we cannot keep an eye on everybody," he explained.

But Foxcroft, the head of Stepping Stones, said if the organization was able to collect membership fees, it could also police its members better. He had already written to the organization twice to alert it to the abuse, he said. He suggested the fellowship ask members to sign forms denouncing abuse or hold meetings to educate pastors about the new child rights law in the state of Akwa Ibom, which makes it illegal to denounce children as witches. Similar laws and education were needed in other states, he said.

Sam Itauma of the Children's Rights and Rehabilitation Network said it is the most vulnerable children - the orphaned, sick, disabled or poor - who are most often denounced. In Nwanaokwo's case, his poor father and dead mother made him an easy target.

"Even churches who didn't use to 'find' child witches are being forced into it by the competition," said Itauma. "They are seen as spiritually powerful because they can detect witchcraft and the parents may even pay them money for an exorcism."

That's what Margaret Eyekang did when her 8-year-old daughter Abigail was accused by a "prophet" from the Apostolic Church, because the girl liked to sleep outside on hot nights - interpreted as meaning she might be flying off to join a coven. A series of exorcisms cost Eyekang eight months' wages, or US$270. The payments bankrupted her.

Neighbors also attacked her daughter.

"They beat her with sticks and asked me why I was bringing them a witch child," she said. A relative offered Eyekang floor space but Abigail was not welcome and had to sleep in the streets.

Members of two other families said pastors from the Apostolic Church had accused their children of witchcraft, but asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.

The Nigeria Apostolic Church refused repeated requests made by phone, e-mail and in person for comment.

---

At first glance, there's nothing unusual about the laughing, grubby kids playing hopscotch or reading from a tattered Dick and Jane book by the graffiti-scrawled cinderblock house. But this is where children like Abigail end up after being labeled witches by churches and abandoned or tortured by their families.

There's a scar above Jane's shy smile: her mother tried to saw off the top of her skull after a pastor denounced her and repeated exorcisms costing a total of $60 didn't cure her of witchcraft. Mary, 15, is just beginning to think about boys and how they will look at the scar tissue on her face caused when her mother doused her in caustic soda. Twelve-year-old Rachel dreamed of being a banker but instead was chained up by her pastor, starved and beaten with sticks repeatedly; her uncle paid him $60 for the exorcism.

Israel's cousin tried to bury him alive, Nwaekwa's father drove a nail through her head, and sweet-tempered Jerry - all knees, elbows and toothy grin - was beaten by his pastor, starved, made to eat cement and then set on fire by his father as his pastor's wife cheered it on.

The children at the home run by Itauma's organization have been mutilated as casually as the praying mantises they play with. Home officials asked for the children's last names not to be used to protect them from retaliation.

The home was founded in 2003 with seven children; it now has 120 to 200 at any given time as children are reconciled with their families and new victims arrive.

Helen Ukpabio is one of the few evangelists publicly linked to the denunciation of child witches. She heads the enormous Liberty Gospel church in Calabar, where Nwanaokwo used to live. Ukpabio makes and distributes popular books and DVDs on witchcraft; in one film, a group of child witches pull out a man's eyeballs. In another book, she advises that 60 percent of the inability to bear children is caused by witchcraft.

In an interview with the AP, Ukpabio is accompanied by her lawyer, church officials and personal film crew.

"Witchcraft is real," Ukpabio insisted, before denouncing the physical abuse of children. Ukpabio says she performs non-abusive exorcisms for free and was not aware of or responsible for any misinterpretation of her materials.

"I don't know about that," she declared.

However, she then acknowledged that she had seen a pastor from the Apostolic Church break a girl's jaw during an exorcism. Ukpabio said she prayed over her that night and cast out the demon. She did not respond to questions on whether she took the girl to hospital or complained about the injury to church authorities.

After activists publicly identified Liberty Gospel as denouncing "child witches," armed police arrived at Itauma's home accompanied by a church lawyer. Three children were injured in the fracas. Itauma asked that other churches identified by children not be named to protect their victims.

"We cannot afford to make enemies of all the churches around here," he said. "But we know the vast majority of them are involved in the abuse even if their headquarters aren't aware."

Just mentioning the name of a church is enough to frighten a group of bubbly children at the home.

"Please stop the pastors who hurt us," said Jerry quietly, touching the scars on his face. "I believe in God and God knows I am not a witch."

seattlepi

uyo conference/Update Email from Leo Igwe

2009-10-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends

Greetings to you all
I hope you are preparing to attend the national conference of the Nigerian Humanist Movement on Witch hunt Christian Fundamentalism and Child Abuse to be held October 21-22 at University of Uyo Community Center. I assure you it will worth your while. I just returned from Uyo where I went to firm up arrangements and will be back there in the next few days. Let me give an idea of what we have in stock for you

SECURITY
I have applied for police protection and the university security outfit has been briefed. So your security is guaranteed.!

Arrival
We are expecting all our guests to arrive on October 20. There are good hotels and guest houses at reasonable prices at EWET HOUSING ESTATE. The rates are between 3000 naira to 10.000 naria as the case may be If you want us to help you with accomodation please contact us immediately at 07033823977

Again please note that motobikes, popularly known as Okada is the most common means of transport in Uyo but motobikes are not allowed as from 6.00pm everyday. So we advise our guests to arrive Uyo before 6.00 pm. However there are a few taxis that ply the roads but they charge exhorbitant fares particularly at night

PROGRAMME
The PROGRAMME is gradually taking shape. We have yet to confirm some speakers. But this what it looks like for now.

On October 19/20 we are flyering. The Child Rights Brigade will help us in doing this
And if you want to join us, then you need to arrive Uyo latest October 18.

On October 21 from 9.00 to 11.00 am, the event kicks off with an anti witchcraft March from Ikot Ekpene Road to the venue of the conference.It will be followed by the Opening Ceremony to be keynoted by Dr N Etuk of University of Uyo Teaching Hospital. We have invited the Governor and the First Lady of the State.

The conference proceedings are in four phases

Phase 1 is the Opening and the government session. Some governemental/intergovernemental agencies have been invited to discuss what they are doing to tackle the problem of witchhunt and child abuse

Phase 11 will be for non governmental organisations/activists to discuss their work

Phase 111 will be for academics to present their papers

And Phase IV will be devoted to humanist business including the world humanist day lecture

We are planning two post conference visits to the office NAPTIP(National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffick in Persons) and CRARN on October 23

As you can see we have a rich package for you.

And all of us at the Nigerian Humanist Movement are looking forward to hosting you in Uyo

See you there
Leo

Girls report father to police for negligence

2009-10-07T11:52:00.000-07:00

Blessing and Chioma Okeke at the office of the spokesperson of the Police Spokesperson, Frank Mba. Photo: PATIENCE OGBO

Two girls, Blessing Adaeze Okeke, 16; and Chioma Okeke, 14; have reported their father to the police over his refusal to cater for their needs.

The elder Ms. Okeke had on the September 28 reported her father, whom she identified as Mr. Okeke, to the police at Igando, a Lagos suburb, saying that their father’s refusal to take care of her, her sister and three other siblings had turned them to street urchins.

“My mum died in April 2003, leaving a one week old baby. In 2005, my father got married to another woman. In 2007, my father chased me and my younger sister out of his house (in Igando) saying that we are witches and that we caused our step-sister to have convulsion. I called our neighbours to beg him to allow us stay in the house but he refused,” Ms. Okeke said.

She told NEXT, on Tuesday, that she started living in a church at Ajengunle with her younger sister who became a stammerer after their father sent them packing.

“We started living in the Christ Victory Sabbath Church at Ajengunle. We stayed there for four months and one of the church members helped me to get a job as a house help to one family at Maza Maza.

"I needed to write WAEC and there was no money, I went back to meet my dad but he refused to sponsor me despite the fact that he has the money. My sister became very angry and said my dad is just wicked because he is a landlord and also an importer of spare parts. That was when we went to report our dad to the police.”

Cordelia Nwaegwu, the girls’ aunt said her brother has refused the plea, from his entire family, to take care of his children.

“I am the sister to these girls’ father and when their mother died, I noticed that the children were suffering. I brought them to my house but my brother called the police to arrest me that I was a kidnapper that I took his children without his permission.

"The police even made me to write an undertaking that anytime my brother’s children came to me, I will not accept them,” she said.

Mrs. Nwaegwu said she took the girls home when she heard that they were sleeping in the church, and on the street.

“I could not bear it. I took them to my house for a while. I begged my brother that even if he will not accommodate the girls he should provide money for their school fees and their upkeep so that they will not end up as prostitutes but he refused saying that the children are witches,” Mrs. Nwaegwu said.

Ms. Okeke said an NGO called Project Alert, which campaigns against violence against women and girls has come to their aid.

“The NGO is trying their best but we want the police to make our father to cater for our needs and if he is not willing to do so, they should jail him,” she said.

The executive director of Project Alert, Josephine Effah-Chukwuma in a telephone interview, confirmed the girls’ story and stated that the girls where kept at the NGO’s shelter for a few days before they were taken, by the police, to the Juvenile and Welfare Centre, Alakara, Mushin, Lagos.

“Cases of abuse of women and young girls by their parents is very common and this is one of such. How can he accuse his own children of being witches?” Mrs. Effah-Chukwuma asked.

The spokesman of the Lagos State Police Command, Frank Mba said Mr. Okeke who hails from Imo State has been invited by the police severally.

“I have invited him to my office and he has not shown up. I have placed calls to his phones and we have not seen him,” said Mr. Mba.

“He must be made to pay for the upkeep of his children, they are his biological children and he has nowhere to push them [to],” Mrs. Effah-Chukwuma said.

Oluwakemi Oduntan, a partner at Jade & Stone Solicitors who spoke to NEXT on the issue said if the Child Welfare and Child Rights laws are properly implemented, cases of abuse and abdication of duties by parents will reduce.

She further stated that the lack of a comprehensive social welfare system in the country fosters the problem. Next

Nigeria is heartbreaking says Clinton

2009-10-04T17:20:00.000-07:00

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton speaking
at a Town Hall meeting in Abuja.

The U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has described the situation in Nigeria as heartbreaking. Mrs. Clinton gave this description yesterday while speaking at the Corporate Council on Africa's Seventh Biennial U.S.-Africa Business Summit in Washington.

Mrs. Clinton, who acknowledged efforts by members of civil society in Nigeria for electoral reforms and an end to corruption, attributed the situation to the mismanagement of revenue.

"There is no doubt that when one looks at Nigeria, it is such a heartbreaking scene we see. The number of people living in Nigeria is going up. The number of people facing food security and health challenges are going up... because the revenues have not been well managed," she said.

Mrs. Clinton said that she had met with leaders in Nigeria and emphasised U.S.' "commitment to partnering with Nigeria in areas such as electoral reform, anti-corruption activities, better stewardship of oil revenues, and efforts to build a more diversified economy, as well as the resolution of the conflict in the Niger Delta."

According to Mrs. Clinton, the Obama Administration has strategies to help spur economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa and create conditions that will improve the lives of the African people.

"We are eager to move beyond stereotypes that paint Africa as a land of poverty, disease, conflict, and not much else.

And we will continue to lay a strong foundation for a new kind of engagement with Africa, one that is built on shared responsibility and shared opportunity, and on partnerships that produce measurable, lasting results," she said.

"From our perspective, for too long, Africa has been20viewed as a charity case instead of a dynamic continent capable of becoming a global economic engine of the 21st century. So it is time to change the narrative."

To this end, the secretary of state said the U.S. will help to create the right conditions for opportunities to be seized by focusing of five key areas: trade; development; energy security; more public-private partnership; and good governance, transparency and accountability, ending corruption, and adherence to the rule of law.

"We will focus on country-led plans and market-based investments in areas like food security, infrastructure, and women. We will focus on metrics and accountability, on nations eager to attack corruption and promote good governance," she said.

Mrs. Clinton however warned that the success of the Obama administration's ‘big agenda' and ‘very positive vision' for Africa is dependent on the continent's leaders.

"We have to acknowledge that none of this can happen without responsible African leadership, without good government and transparency and accountability, without acceptable rule of law, without environmental stewardship and the effective management of resources, without respect for human rights, without an end to corruption as a cancer that eats away at the entrepreneurial spirits and hopes of millions of people," she said.

To read the complete text of the speech click here NEXT

Killing of women, child "witches" on rise, U.N. told

2009-09-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

GENEVA (Reuters) - Murder and persecution of women and children accused of being witches is spreading around the world and destroying the lives of millions of people, experts said Wednesday.

The experts -- United Nations officials, civil society representatives from affected countries and non-governmental organization (NGO) specialists working on the issue -- urged governments to acknowledge the extent of the persecution.

"This is becoming an international problem -- it is a form of persecution and violence that is spreading around the globe," Jeff Crisp of the U.N.'s refugee agency UNHCR told a seminar organized by human rights officials of the world body.

Aides to U.N. special investigators on women's rights and on summary executions said killings and violence against alleged witch women -- often elderly people -- were becoming common events in countries ranging from South Africa to India.

And community workers from Nepal and Papua New Guinea told the seminar, on the fringes of a session of the U.N.'s 47-member Human Rights Council, that "witch-hunting" was now common, both in rural communities and larger population centres.

HOMELESS CHILDREN

Gary Foxcroft of British-based charity Stepping Stones- Nigeria said children living homeless on the streets in many countries had been driven out by families or communities because they were suspected of being witches.

But increasingly children suspected of witchcraft -- usually on the basis of vague accusations -- were being killed because their parents feared they would have to take them back if the authorities identified them.

Ulrich Garms from the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told the seminar that there were no reliable statistics on how many women and child "witches" were killed annually around the globe.

Other U.N. officials tracking the problem said deaths ran into at least tens of thousands, and beatings, deprivation of property and banishment and isolation from community life meant victims of "witch frenzy" ran into millions.

Speakers at the seminar agreed that poverty, exacerbated by the current world economic crisis, often lay behind the phenomenon as people sought to find scapegoats for their misfortunes and the illnesses they suffered.

But some preachers of major religions and governments were also responsible, they said. Reuters

Nigerian conference on child rights attacked

2009-09-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

July 29 2009 - Nigerian conference on witchcraft and child rights attacked by religious group. Child 'witches' are regularly abandoned, isolated, discriminated, ostracized from the community and sometimes killed in Nigeria due to deeply held superstitions.

ITV news show scoops Emmy award

2009-09-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

ITV News has won an International Emmy for its coverage of the earthquake in China's Sichuan province that left almost 90,000 people dead or missing.

Channel 4's Dispatches: Saving Africa's Witch Children won the current affairs category.

The Oxford Scientific Films and Red Rebel Films production showed the plight of Nigerian children accused of being witches.

Nominees in 10 other categories will be announced on 5 October.

Bruce Paisner, president and CEO of the International Academy, praised both programmes, saying they had achieved "the difficult task of giving a voice to human drama while crossing cultural boundaries".

Child slaves

ITV News was up against competition from Qatar, the Ukraine and Brazil, including two pieces on the Russia-Georgia war from Al Jazeera and the Ukraine's Inter TV channel.

In the current affairs category, Al Jazeera was nominated for a documentary on two Palestinian schools in Nablus.

Dispatches was also up against a programme about child slaves from Germany and a documentary about child trafficking in Argentina.

The other 10 categories include arts programming, drama series, non-scripted entertainment and TV movie/mini-series.

Last year's winners included Aardman Animation and CBBC's Shaun the Sheep, Channel 4's The IT Crowd and BBC One's Life on Mars.

BBC News

Nwanakwo’s death, the search for justice and the re-branding project

2009-09-22T14:40:00.000-07:00

Absolutely shocking! Distasteful, traumatizing and unbelievable! Can this be another April fool? No, it is not. The news is indeed true: Nwanakwo is DEAD! This is state that beclouded the Child’s Right and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) Centre when the news of the death of 9 year old Nwanakwo Udo Edet from Ikono LGA who was receiving treatment at University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH) having been bathed with acid by his father.

Pitiful! Poor, innocent Nwanakwo was taken to the UUTH in July this year from General Hospital Ikono when his medical situation deteriorated. His sin is the acceptance to an invitation to attend a prayer meeting with a church in Urban, near Calabar, Cross River State Nigeria. “When I arrived the church, people were clapping and dancing. I prayed God to bless me and our family including my father; soon the pastor came, turning around, holding my head ‘Do you know that you are a witch?’ he asked me. I told him no, I am not a witch…” ‘He told me that I must confess or he will beat me, even as he slapped me immediately. He handed over a bottle of olive oil to me to be drinking at home. I was annoyed, and went and told my father so that he will arrest the pastor with police.

To his chagrin, his father merely told him that if he were a witch he would be cast out of the house. That was an understatement. After four days his father told him that they would travel home to see their relatives. The little lad was so elated by this offer. Did Nwanakwo and his father come back truly?

He told CRARN team who visited him at the UUTH in August that his father called a cyclist and whispered to him. They mounted on the bike and moved to a particular road that was bushy up to a distance where there were no houses and stopped there. His father took him inside the bush and pretended that he wanted to ease himself, while the cyclist waited. “He brought out a gallon from a sack bag and forced me on the ground, pressing my legs with his knees, he forced my mouth opened and poured acid into it. I cried and pleaded with him that I am his son; he shouted and called me a wizard and devil. He poured the acid on my face, head and body and ran away. Somebody came and took me to the police.” He said with a clear as is using a wireless microphone

Looking at Nwanakwo’s photograph, the acid burns are very glaring. The boy, who lost his mother four years ago, said he wants justice to prevail. “Even in my grave I want my father and Pastor King of Mouth Zion Light House, Urban to be arrested and brought to book.” The Chief Medical Director (CMD) of UUTH, Prof. Emmanuel Ekanem was contacted to know what measure has been taken to ensure that justice is done. “The Head of the Corporate Affairs Unit (UUTH) has contacted the Divisional Police Officer of Ikono LGA who said that his men have been drafted to investigate the matter …” the CMD had responded briefly.

This brutish act was committed in January this year, precisely eight months ago, and Nwanakwo died about four days ago. As at the time of writing this piece, there was no news as to the arrest of Nwanakwo’s father or Pastor King. Will justice ever be done?

Nwanakwo represents the hundreds or thousands of children in Akwa Ibom , Cross River, Bayelsa, Abia Rivers States, etc, who have suffered similar faith; either by being set on fire, thrown into the river to serve as delicious meal for the fish, buried alive, poisoned to death, slaughtered, hacked to death, pierced hot pokers into the anus, stoned to death, incarcerated and manacled in churches or prayer houses, sold to child traffickers or ritual syndicates, enslaved in brothels, strangled to death, starved, neglected, hung or suspended to die by piece-meal and or bathed with acid.

The rebranding of Nigeria is a project I so endeared and so I can die for it. But the rebranding has to start from the first rung of the ladder. The first rung is the children. The visit by the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Chief Godswill Akpabio to children at CRARN Centre where over 200 stigmatized or witch-branded are rehabilitated children is an inroad to this concept of rebranding. Therefore, all the undoing committed against these children must be addressed and redressed. The Childs Right Law should not be allowed to be sleeping in archives and libraries unattended to. Its spirit should be evoked and allowed to hound the phony pastors, fake evangelists, apostles and prophets. The Child Witch Inventors should not be allowed to continue in the hoodwinking business using the name of God and garnering criminal awe and reverence while children continue to suffer, the image of Christianity and Nigeria remain in the mud; they must face justice. There should be no sacred cow. This to me is rebranding! Rebranding should be an egg we cannot trifle with, if sincerity is anything to go by. Parents who give themselves up to be brainwashed by the renegade men of God thereby unleashing all sort of terror on children should be made to face the full weight of the law. To say that the rate of child-witch branding with its attendant consequences on children is alarming is making an understatement.

This is not enough; there must be a Special Implementation Committee saddled with the responsibility of monitoring the activities of churches, liaising with the police in ensuring the prosecution child’s right violators in the truest spirit of the law. But I am confident that where the conventional law take some doses of sedatives and remain drowsy, fidgeting or opt not to wake up at all, the natural justice will brave the storm and fish out the untouchable and the sacred cows. ‘Be not deceived, God is not mocked…’

You will agree with me that I have digressed a lot. So I hereby plead for amnesty. Yes Nwanakwo, in the spirit of rebranding should be immortalized! This will awaken the consciousness in our psyche that children, the world over, deserve special attention; not assault and battery, not machetes cut, not hot iron-branding, not hot water-bathing, not even violent exorcism, but love, good food, education and good health. And that no one should be religiously irreligious as this sometimes leads to ‘insanity’-so giving the urge to harm others, especially vulnerable children.

Nwana, my sole-friend, your death reminds me of the 9 year old Mary Effiong of Oruko, Oron axis who was slaughtered in a broad daylight in 2007 by his beloved daddy because an apostle of God revealed to him that his frequent arrest by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency-NAFDAC for trading in Indian hemp and hashes, was the handiwork of his daughter who was a witch. He was arrested; but pressure from the elite and the community made him to walk the street like Fidel Castro of Cuba while in office. Justice was not done! So for Nwanakwo, will justice ever be done?

Sam Ikpe-Itauma is the President,
Child’s Right and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) Akwa Ibom State.

Kenya: Human Body Parts Don't Create Wealth

2009-09-18T22:52:00.000-07:00

Nairobi — This week's kidnapping and eventual murder of a six-year-old Sudanese boy, Emmanuel Agwar Adar, in Nairobi was gory as it can be. But they rubbed it on cutting off his tongue.

Emmanuel's murder comes barely a month after the city's taxi drivers took to the streets to protest the murder of their six colleagues in mysterious circumstances.

The taxi men claimed all the victims had their private parts chopped off before being dumped in the outskirts of the city.

Although there was no official confirmation, the drivers' say these murders could be related to a mix of occult and extortion.

Witchcraft hasn't disappeared from African culture just as it refuses to go in the West. For centuries, human body parts have been used as ingredients for magical concoctions and charms. To obtain body parts, performers of these dark arts kill people in order to harvest specific organs for use in the occult.

Things haven't been easy for them with the advent of the nation-state in Africa where murder is a capital offence, meaning witchdoctors can only acquire these body parts from underground organ hunters.

Demand for human skin

Cases similar to that of the Kenyan drivers, where people disappear mysteriously, only for their bodies to be discovered several days later minus various body parts are so many in the continent today that they are treated as routine crimes in some countries.

According to the South African Police Service Research Centre reports, there is a belief that body parts taken from live victims are rendered more potent by their screams, which means victims must be subjected to pain before death.

Ritual killings have been reported in Mozambique where the country's Human Rights League has blamed them on the proliferation of witchdoctors from western Africa. Authorities have also confirmed that although most of the organs trafficked in that country are for transplants, extraction of organs for witchcraft purposes also happens.

Human skin appears to be one of the most sought-after things by ritual killers in Africa.

During the early 2000s, there were widespread cases of people being killed and skinned in Mbeya region of Tanzania and Mwiki outskirts of Nairobi. Investigations by the media and police revealed there was a high demand for human skin in Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa where it fetched $2,400 (Sh180,000) to $9,600 (Sh180,000) depending on the age of the victim. In an effort to raise awareness about the trade in human skin Tanzania's chief government chemist's office kicked up a storm at an international business fair in Dar es Salaam by displaying skin and other human body parts.

Nigeria has the highest number of occult killings in the continent. Not surprisingly, the vice has found thematic expression in the country's vibrant film industry. According to Nigerian authorities, the killings are perpetrated by people commonly known as headhunters, who act at the behest of juju men.

Murdered in London

Cases of children being abducted and ritually slaughtered are so many in southwest Nigeria that they sparked a spate of murderous protests and mob lynching early last year that left more than 20 suspected kidnappers dead.

The murder in London of a Nigerian kid, which British police named "Boy Adam" for lack of positive identification, in September 2001, brought to international attention to Nigeria's ritual killings.

Forensic examinations on Adam's torso, found floating in River Thames, revealed that he was a native of Yoruba Plateau in Nigeria and the state of the cadaver indicated a style of ritual killing practised in West and Southern Africa.

Although this case came about barely ten days after the September 11 terrorist attack on the US, it prompted such a huge media coverage that retired South African President Nelson Mandela and Nigerian soccer star Nwanko Kanu joined the rest of the world in appeals for clues leading to the arrest of Adam killers.

But even after the arrest of 22 West Africans in Britain and an aggressive campaign by Metropolitan police in Nigeria to track down the boy's mother, the case was never resolved.

A confidential report by the police afterwards established that children were being trafficked into the UK from Africa and used for human sacrifice. The report also claimed that "for spells to be powerful it required a sacrifice of a male child unblemished by circumcision".

Increased unemployment, poverty, food shortages, famines and greed for money are some of the reasons blamed for the recent surge of deaths attributed to human sacrifice in Uganda. The frequency of the killings is especially high in the country's poor north and eastern regions.

Although in 2008 alone more than 300 cases of ritual related murders cases were reported to the police, only 18 of them made it to the courts. The situation was made worse by the fact that several of the high-profile suspects arrested in these cases were parents and relatives of the children victims.

"My experience working with victims suggests that the perpetrators are greedy people who want to get rich quick. In rural areas, people can sacrifice their own child. In urban areas, educated and rich people will look for somebody else's," says Elena Lomeli, a volunteer with the British charity VSO.

The situation has been so bad that in January 2009, the Ugandan government appointed a special police taskforce on human sacrifice and announced that 2,000 officers were to receive special training in tackling child trafficking with the support of US government.

These incidences have prompted Bakayambira, a renowned Kampala theatre group, to come up with a production called Baffesa Iwa feza. In the midst of its humour, the production carries a strong condemnation of ritual killings. However, all these murders take a backseat compared to the killings of albinos in Tanzania.

Believed to have magical powers to attract wealth in a short time, albino body parts are a hot commodity for sorcery and witchcraft in that country.

Derogatorily referred to as zeru, ghost in Kiswahili, people with the pigmentation defect in Tanzania are not, in certain cases, safe even among members of their own families.

A 35-year-old man in Lake Tanganyika was accused of trying to sell his 24-year-old wife to Congolese businessmen for $2,000 (Sh150,000) while in Mwanga District a mother was alleged to have sold her albino baby girl to a group of men who slaughtered her and drunk her blood.

Danger lurks everywhere

"They are cutting us up like chickens. Our biggest fear now is the fear of living. If you leave work at night as an albino you are unsure of reaching home safely. When you sleep you are unsure of waking up in one piece. In the streets you hear people plotting how they can get you," lamented Zihada Msembo, Tanzanian Albino Society secretary general.

The case of Elizabeth Hussein, a 13-year-old girl from Shinyanga, is a testimony to the plight of albinos in Tanzania.

After leaving home alone to watch a film about Jesus in the village centre, the girl had signed her own death warrant. On her way back, she was waylaid and hacked to bits by a machete-wielding mob.

Official reports in Tanzania indicate that 35 albinos were murdered in 2008, mostly women and children, but leaders in the Tanzanian albinism community believe the number of deaths could be higher. The situation is so bad in some areas that children with this genetic defect have to be escorted to and fro school by community or government bodyguards.

Even in death they are not safe. Heavy rocks have to be placed on graves to deter grave robbers.

The growth of mining and fishing activities in the Lake Victoria regions of Mwanza, Shinyanga and Mara regions has led to a sudden rise in demand of albino body parts. Besides the three regions being known for witchcraft, some miners and fishermen believe that albino body parts cause instant success.

Fishermen for instance, have this macabre belief that if they weave strands of red albino hair into their nets, fish will be attracted by the glimmer. Although poverty and ignorance are the major causes of these barbaric acts, Nigerian films are being accused of touting the efficacy of witchcraft.

Reports also indicate that albino body parts harvested in Tanzania are being exported to neighbouring countries where they fetch higher prices. In one instance last year, a Tanzanian trader was intercepted travelling to the Democratic Republic of Congo with an albino baby head in his luggage. On further questioning the man confessed that a businessman was going to pay for the head by its weight. In North America and Europe one in 20,000 people have some form of albinism but in Tanzania it's five times as common with one in 4,000 being albinos.

Although various sources put the number of albinos in the country at around 300,000, the WHO says the number hardly exceeds 170,000.

The wave of killing sprees has led to many albinos seeking refuge in the remote Ukerewe Island on the shores of Lake Victoria where murders are rare. Albinism is a hereditary lack of melanin pigment which protects the skin, eyes, and hair from the sun's ultraviolet rays. But there is a myth in the lake region that a mineral in a native fish causes the high levels of albinism.

Al-Shaymaa Kwegyir, Tanzania's first albino MP, launched a spirited campaign in 2008 to sensitize the public on these heinous acts.

In October 2008, albinos staged a demonstration in the city of Dar es Salaam to raise awareness and many people supported it. But that same evening one of the demonstrators was followed home by unknown assailants who chopped off her hands and left her for dead. It's that bad.

During his monthly television addresses to the nation Preside nt Jakaya Kikwete has dwelt on the issue at length in several occasions, urging Tanzanians "to discard superstitious beliefs and shortcuts to wealth" and instructing the police to crackdown on traditional healers involved in the albino killings. May 4 is National Albino Day in Tanzania and draws representatives with albinism from Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Senegal, South Africa and United Kingdom.

During last year's Albino Day forum in Dar, the Albino Association of Kenya chairman, Alex Munyere, urged Tanzanian authorities to stop the killings before they spread to Kenya.

However, albinos in Burundi, affected by the killing wave in Tanzania, got a moral boost when eight men charged with killing albinos in the town of Ruyigi were sentenced to life imprisonment.

"I think it will reduce the amount of attacks on albinos in our country," Mr Kazungu Kassim, spokesman for Burundi albinos, told journalists.

The stature of ritual murders and witchcraft in the past was reinforced by the rise of leaders like Jean-Bidel Bokassa and Idi Amin who, from their public utterances and evidence discovered in their homes after their ouster, had an affinity for human body parts.

Although the reason for ritual killing is squarely blamed on witchcraft, ignorance, poverty, greed for money and power, the quest to overcome diseases like HIV/Aids also contributes to the escalation of this barbarism.

In Swaziland for instance, a country weighed down by intricate traditions and superstitions, police and the press have reported an upswing in ritual murders during electioneering periods.

"It's a form of sympathetic magic where the life force of the victim is sacrificed to give power to the recipient" says Dr Thandie Malepe, director of the National Psychiatric Centre in Manzini, the country's commercial capital.

allAfrica.com

Akwa Ibom Shows Education Can Be Free

2009-09-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

A solemn assembly where school children will lift up their voices to pray, testimonies from former house helps who are back to school and an awards ceremony in which a total sum of N2.8 million will go to various winners, including secondary school students; are some of the activities lined up to celebrate the first anniversary of free and compulsory basic and secondary education in Akwa Ibom State, beginning tomorrow. Bukola Olatunji, who visited the state with other journalists at the weekend, reports

Its full name, Akwa Abasi Ibom, according to the state Commissioner for Education, Dr. Nseabasi Akpan, means, The Almighty God's. “It is the only state in the country that is so named. This should be the contact point for God. God's blessings should radiate from Akwa Ibom State to the others”, he said, adding that under the present administration, the state has resolved to live up to that name.

How does it intend to achieve this? Education, Akpan told journalists at the weekend. His Information and Social Re-orientation counterpart, Mr. Aniekan Umanah corroborated this, saying, “education is the major signature of this administration. It is a project that aims to address poverty, criminality, and rural-urban flight, both of capital and human beings.”

According to him, “The re-branding of Nigeria must begin with the re-branding of the mentality of our people through education. It is the key to societal development and the development of the human being.”
He recalled that shortly after Governor Godswill Akapbio's appointment, an Education Stakeholders' Meeting was held in Uyo, where paramount rulers, local government chairmen, head teachers, principals and teachers, the general masses had a one-on-one with the governor. “They made their input and that is what we are implementing now.”

With many school structures completely broken down, the Commissioner for Education said, government embarked on an aggressive rehabilitation and reconstruction of classrooms and at the last count, more than 500 primary and secondary schools had been rebuilt.

Shortly after his appointment, Dr. Akpan had also appointed an Education Rehabilitation Committee, which gave a comprehensive report on the primary and secondary schools in the state, with pictures. This, he said, has served as a guide in the government's rehabilitation programme. According to him, the sum of N6.45 billion has so far been spent on renovation projects in the state.

“I always tell our visitors that we don't need to tell you anything, just go round. Anywhere you see school buildings with red roof. That is our work and it is only the first phase”, he said.
In August last year, the state government introduced free and compulsory education, up to the secondary level. Every child resident in the state, irrespective of their states of origin, benefits from the programme.

Umanah said: “'Back to Basics' is the Educational Thrust of this administration. Government is sparing nothing in restoring the glory of the school system by ensuring that educational infrastructure, curriculum, management, input and output improve.

“The governor is taking our people away from the place of servitude where those in Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt come and pick house helps, to a place where the Akwa Ibom of tomorrow will have professionals in every field”, he said.

The state now has a home-grown Child's Right Act to suit the peculiarities of its people. With this, it is now a punishable offence not to send children to school. “No Akwa Ibom child is allowed to hawk or work under any guise during school hours”, Umanah said.

Akpan said, the state allocates more than 20 percent of its budget to education. “What is paramount in the governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio's thoughts is that the children of Akwa Ibom State must have access to quality education.”

On facilities, science equipment, chemicals and reagents worth N500m have been distributed to public secondary schools. Text books worth millions of naira were also distributed to public secondary schools and the six technical colleges and zonal libraries in the state.

SSCE and NABTEB Exam fees have been paid for all candidates, while scholarships, bursaries, medical and law grants were also awarded students in tertiary institutions.

Sixty-two secondary schools have been selected (two per Local Government Area) as compulsory boarding schools and they are to be provided with: Dormitory blocks to accommodate all students, Dining halls, kitchens, libraries and science laboratories, chapels and staff quarters, perimeter fencing and good road network; Borehole and electricity generating plants. An ultra modern e-Library is nearing completion in the state capital.

In order to stop examination malpractice and prepare the students adequately for SSCE, government now conducts a centrally-administered promotion examination for SS2 students in both public and private schools. Closely monitored by the ministry of education, only those who pass the examination are promoted to SS 3. The students' performance is also one of the yardsticks for promoting teachers.

This is the reason for the celebration, which begins tomorrow. According to Umanah, “What we are celebrating is the first year of true free education and I underline the word 'free'. There might have been pronouncements, but this is the first time that education is truly and totally free in Akwa Ibom State. This is the first time we have seen school population doubling within a year. We pay education subvention of N100 per pupil in primary school to the head teachers and N300 per student in secondary school to the principals. That takes care of all hidden charges. No PTA levy, nothing.”

Akpan disclosed that the subvention amounted to N172 million each for first and second terms of the 2008/2009 session, as well as N183,399,900, giving a total of N527.399, 800:00 as subvention for the first year. All fees charged in place of hand work, late coming and so on, have been outlawed. Principals have been demoted for levying students.

Population explosion means more money for subvention, he said, but the government is committed to the programme. To underscore the explosion in enrolment, Akpan showed journalists the latest report from the Examination Unit of the ministry “in the June/July 2009 examination for the placement of students into Junior Secondary Schools (JSS), 61, 542 students applied. This is unprecedented in the history of the state and it does not include schools run by voluntary agencies and private schools. We are talking about less 30, 000, thereabout applying in 2006.”

Seventy-two per cent of them passed the examination, while the rest failed. Another 52, 446 are applying for admission into Senior Secondary School (SSS), a figure that the commissioner also described as 'first in the history of Akwa Ibom State.”

“Education is expensive. That is why I will like to appeal to the people of the state to take care of the facilities that have been provided in the school”, he said.

Mrs, Eti-Ido Okon, Primary Two teacher at Government Primary School, Ibi-Aku-Itam II, Itu Local Government Area said, “we appreciate the free education programme in the state. Many parents now send their children to school. My daughter (One and a half years old) also attends n Early Child Care centre and they have all the teaching aids that they need. But we need more teachers and more classrooms.

But as the student, perhaps, sing, 'Oh God Our Help in Ages Past, Our Hope for years to Come..' tomorrow, their hope lies in God and in the government being steadfast in building on what it has started.

An Uyo resident, Ms. Edidiong Umana observed, “the Governor has tried. I commend his effort in the education sector. You have communities where they had defecated in the dilapidated classrooms. These have all been cleaned and rebuilt. Those schools now have toilets. Some of them even have libraries. I am talking of primary schools. But he must do something about the secondary schools. People have responded to his free education, so he must provide the facilities. If you go to a place like Uyo High School, you will see students sitting on pavements.”

While not disagreeing with the need to build more classrooms, Assistant Secretary General of the Akwa Ibom Professionals, Mr. Etim Imisim said, the free education programme was on course. “It is better to sit on the pavement than to sit at home.” He however stressed the need to plan ahead. As the government creates more room to take more students, it must prepare for when this large army will begin to graduate from secondary school “otherwise we will have a bottleneck at the tertiary level”, Imisim warned.

Akpan said more teaching and non-teaching staff are to be recruited to cope with the upsurge in students/pupils enrolment and as provision of more classrooms is a continuous project. Through his office window, he pointed at the latest consignment of dual desks and chairs that are to be distributed to schools as soon as the ministry takes delivery of all the furniture to be supplied.

They acknowledged that people have come forward to support the government. The Anang people's socio-cultural group donated 1 million exercise books. Akwa Ibom Professionals in Aba and Port Harcourt have also donated about 600, 000 exercise books between them. The Forum of Personal Aides to the Governor was not left out in the donation of exercise books. All these are to be distributed as schools resume this week. But the Commissioner said a lot still needs to be done and all hands must be on deck.

Chairman of the State Universal Basic Education Board, Obong Ekpenyong Asuquo, had accompanied the state's contingent to the International JETS competition holding in Paraguay. Acting Chairman Hon. Chris Okonna also gave more insights into the state government's plan to address the challenges in the sector.

“Teachers are adequately motivated through regular payment of salaries, leave grants, promotions, car loans as well as other incentives. The state is one of the few that is paying the Teachers' Salary Sale of 27.5 salary increase. On the law prohibiting child labour during school hours, he said, the parents of a first offender will get a stern warning. After that, he/she could be jailed. “There are monitors who go on school inspection nearly daily. We are also partnering with Faith Based Organisations to impart moral education in schools. The response is overwhelming.

There is such an influx in our schools now that we may not even get to arrest anybody for not sending his child to school”, he said.

On efforts to increase access, Okonna said, “We have 1,146 primary schools now in the state, from less than 1, 000 before. The programme is not limited to the cities alone. We are also taking it into the hinterland by providing nomadic education for migrant fishermen and giving them the best of facilities. Governor Akpabio is also developing the rural areas, providing light and so on. Awolowo declared free education in the West (in the 50s) Now you have Yorubas everywhere. In the nearest future, you will see Akwa Ibom people in all spheres of life.

“Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) sends books and the governor is committing extra funds to ensure that more books are supplied to schools. Now, people are coming from other states to attend school here. We are working according to the national UBE work plan “We have to redouble our efforts to providing more classrooms and dual desks for them. New blocks are being built because we have the challenge of accommodation. But we are coping very well. His Excellency has paid the counterpart funds for the UBE special intervention fund.”

THISDAY ONLINE

Commissioner Tasks Youths On Free Education

2009-09-14T18:04:00.000-07:00

The Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Information and Social Re-orientation, Mr. Aniekan Umanah, has urged youths in the state to take advantage of the free and compulsory education provided by the State government.

Government he said has provided free and compulsory education, free medical services to children in order to improve their welfare and to guarantee their enhanced future. .

Umanah stated this in Uyo when the Speaker and executive members of the Akwa Ibom Children's Parliament called on him in his office.

He called on them to embrace this good policy of the government, as this is the best gift that anyone could offer them.

He congratulated the children on the collective victory achieved because of the enactment of the Child Right Act, describing it as the best thing that happened to children in Akwa Ibom State.

With the law, he noted, it is unlawful to deprive any child the right to education or label them as witches or wizard.

He further admonished the children to be honest, focused, and goal-oriented, above all draw closer to God and shun all vices that are detrimental to their future..

While charging them to use their position to influence their contemporaries on positive values, that would make them useful to themselves and the society at large, the information commissioner assured the children parliamentarians of the readiness of his ministry to identifies with their noble visions and to assist them most especially in the area of publicity of their programmes.

Earlier in her address, the Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State Children's Parliament, Hon. Edima Akpan, commended Governor Akpabio for being children-friendly and providing the much-needed succor for an Akwa Ibom child.

Leadership Nigeria

Lawyers want rehab homes for child hawkers

2009-09-10T20:06:00.000-07:00

The Lagos State government has been advised to strengthen the implementation of the Child Rights Act by establishing rehabilitation centres and special victim unit in hospitals.

The need was mentioned by Omotola Rotimi of the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender at a seminar organised by the Human Rights Institute arm of the Nigerian Bar Association on Wednesday at the ongoing NBA conference.

"When children are picked off the street while hawking, we have no place to keep them, except the Remand Homes meant for errant children. Also, a special ward should be dedicated to the treatment of victims of sexual abuse and molestations. They are not always free to express themselves in general wards," she said.

However, Roland Ewubare, the executive secretary of the National Human Right Commission and the chairman of the session, said these are the responsibilities of the state government.

Though, Lagos State government is said to have gone ahead of other states in implementing the Act, which is just two years old in the state, nevertheless, a lot still need to be done especially in the area of exploitative labour and protection of children against harmful exposure.

Part of the harmful exposures is the absence of zebra crossings on many of our roads that children cross on their way to school and the upbringing of children in red light zones.

Where the act stands

Mr. Ewubare described Nigeria as being at the last bus stop on the way to hell, especially in the area of implementing the Child Rights Act. 14 states, mostly northern, have not domesticated the Act and not much has been done to implement the Act by the states that have passed it into law, said the Speaker, Sharon Oladiji who is a Child Protection Specialist with UNICEF.

She said the Act has just four interdependent rights, which are survival, development, participation, and protection rights.

"It is not enough to pass the Act into law, there must be concrete strategies to achieve the aims of the Acts," she said. Many states, therefore, has been paying lip service to the implementation of the Act, which she said has not even been printed by many of the states.

The UNICEF statistics presented showed that not much has been done in ensuring a holistic development of the Nigerian child.

Child mortality is still comparatively high, more than one million die annually before age five, 35 per cent of which is due to malnourishment while teenage marriage and female genital mutilation are still proving to be a hard nut to crack.

School enrolment is low, 4.7million between ages 6 and 11 still do not have access to primary education and in 2008, 1,269 trafficked children were recovered by the National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and other Related Matters.

The way forward

Mrs. Oladeji identified poor funding and budgeting as the problem facing the implementation of the Act in Nigeria and therefore, tasked the Nigerian Bar Association and the Nigerian Media to continually bring to fore the plight of children.

"The attorneys-general of each state are members of the NBA and they can help with the passage of the Act into law," she said while condemning the trail of just 24 human traffickers in 2008 by the NAPTIP." A child that is left untrained and unprotected will grow up to be a threat to our children whom we are protecting," she concluded.

Race to save millions of dying kids from the jaws of death begins

2009-09-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

With nearly three million children suffering from chronic malnutrition and more than one million from stunted growth, malnutrition is certainly an emerging "silent emergency" in the country. Ben Ukwuoma who was in Sokoto and Kebbi states, two of the most critical states with growing cases of malnutrition under a UNICEF assessment programme, writes on the urgent need to accelerate progress in the seven years left to reach the Millennium Development Goals target

THEY looked more like living corpses. With stomachs distended, eyes sunken, puffiness extending from the face to the legs, and a pale skin, the over 1,000 Nigerian children attending the Stabilisation Clinic in the remote Council of Kebbi State have come to represent the face of malnutrition ravaging the fringes of the northern part of the country. But the United Nations' Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the governments of the region have risen to the challenge by eagerly embracing a local intervention programme all hail as working.

Malnutrition remains the major underlying cause of more than 50 per cent of under five deaths in Nigeria. Currently, the country is one of the two African nations listed among the 20 responsible for 80 per cent of malnutrition in children, with states in the North rated as the major contributors to the country's poor rating. In absolute terms, the number of undernourished Under Five (U-5) children in Nigeria (about 10 million are chronically malnourished, and seven million underweight) outstrips entire populations in some sub-Saharan African countries.

"Malnutrition is a silent emergency in Nigeria," said UNICEF Executive Director Anns Veneman. "Among children Under Five, 29 per cent are underweight. Nearly three million children are suffering from chronic malnutrition and more than one million from stunting. This is simply unacceptable", she added

The nutrition indices, according to the UNICEF's recent report include 14 per cent low birth weight, 13 per cent exclusive breastfeeding, 14 per cent wasting, 43 per cent stunting and 27 per cent underweight.

The report added that nearly three million U-5 kids are wasted, and more than one million suffer from acute malnutrition, implying that every one in four children is underweight, particularly in the northern part of the country.

The states worst affected in what UNICEF called "silent malnutrition emergency" are Kebbi, Sokoto, Katsina, Kano, Adamawa and Gombe.

The Guardian learnt that Kebbi State with U-5 and maternal mortality of between 269 and 800 per per 1,000 is one of the worst affected by poor nutrition among children.

In the last two months, the clinic built by UNICEF in collaboration with states and local councils have recorded 1,072 severely malnourished children.

"That figure is only from two local councils of the state, which is an alarming trend. If we are to survey all the local councils of the state, we may record up to 5,000 cases which is very unacceptable", Dr. John Egbuta, Executive Director, Humanitarian Development Centre for Africa's Advancement told The Guardian.

Although the Kebbi State Health Commissioner, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq Gari tried to down play the problem, The Guardian gathered that many more children in the state are coming down with malnutrition, occasioned by poor nutritional habits, inadequate household food security, poor hygienic environment and inaccessibility to health facilities.

For instance, in Shafarma village, before the establishment of the Primary Healthcare Centre, the only accessible health facility is located in Piggi, about 20 kilometers from the village. But the centre has since collapses and yet to be rehabilitated.

The Chairman, Augie Local Council, Alhaji Abubakar Birnin Tudu put it succinctly thus: "The problem of malnutrition had been a source of concern to the community. Reports revealed that malnutrition is responsible for about 50 per cent of children death within the community. Egbuta said the problem is compounded by the absence of care", he explained.

"The understanding of care is lacking. Many of the mothers have failed to breast feed their children exclusively. They usually breast feed with contaminated water resulting in many cases of diarhoea, which is a wasting disease.

"The good thing now is that the community is aware of the devastating effects of the problem and they are involved in the intervention programme. In fact, they have claimed ownership of the programme, which is one way of solving the problem. While the local council is providing the essential drugs, donor agencies are providing the key to the intervention called Plumpy nut, which is a kind of contraption that can bring the children back to life", Tudu said.

According to him: "The local council has taken stringent actions in providing the necessary drugs and materials, intensifying mobilisation and effective monitoring exercises as well as provision of logistic support. This action has drastically witnessed positive changes in healthcare pattern of the malnutrition-affected children".

Essentially, malnutrition is the condition that develops when the body does not get the right amount of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients it needs to maintain healthy tissues and organ function. It is linked to a variety of illnesses - from under-nourishment as a result of lack of one or more nutrient - such as vitamin and mineral deficiencies to obesity and other diet-related diseases.

Regarded by far as the most lethal form of malnutrition is Protein-Energy Malnutrition (PEM).

The World Health Organisation (WHO) calls PEM "the silent emergency" whose major victims are children of school age. It declared that PEM "is an accomplice in at least half of the 10.4 million child deaths each year."

Ordinarily, malnutrition is the lack of food. But at the centre of it all is poverty, which is said to affect about 80 per cent of the Nigerian population, weakening productivity and capacity of children to learn properly in school. According to UNICEF, the high rate of malnutrition in Nigeria is caused by food insecurity based on calorie intake and non-food expenditure due to poverty as most Nigerians live below the poverty line.

"This is compounded by ignorance fuelled by adult illiteracy and early marriages. Poor feeding habits are a major contributing factor, including low exclusive breast-feeding and complimentary feeding habits," UNICEF declared.

The study shows that most children under five months are fed with complimentary foods comprising plain water, non-milk liquids and juice plus milk other than breast milk given by bottle with a nipple.

It is not only bad news in the nation's efforts to grapple with its vulnerable group.

Although the country lags behind in achieving universal coverage of key maternal and child nutrition interventions, it has been formally acknowledged as U.S.I-compliant. In fact, it is the only country in Africa to have attained this critical status.

Household-level iodized salt consumption is estimated at 98 per cent, the remaining two per cent is said to be concentrated in a few areas where salt is produced locally, 100 per cent of flour, sugar and 60 per cent of packaged and retail vegetable oil have been fortified with vitamin A since 2002.

The Commissioner of Health of Sokoto, Dr. Jabbi Kilgori, accessing his own state, also was forthright:

"Malnutrition is really a challenge in the healthcare delivery sector. We are working together with UNICEF and other donor agencies to be able to evaluate the level of nutritional deficiency and also do some supplementation, including educating people on local cure and how to handle malnutrition cases," he said.

Egbuta who is a nutritionist, added that "acute malnutrition is caused by three underlining situation of inadequate household food security, inadequate care at the level of the household, and inadequate healthy environment. These are the three underlining, problems, and put together they would lead to malnutrition.

"Now, what we have seen in the field is a situation which we call severe acute malnutrition. It is a situation where the child is almost like going to die. And we have put in place this programme so as to save these children. It is a pilot programme, which will be replicated in other states. It is a programme, which the government of Nigeria is supporting, while UNICEF is the donor agency backing it up. In Kebbi State particularly, the state government has provided all that they would need to provide for the programme to succeed", he said.

Indeed, the Kebbi pilot management of Malnutrition Programme at Community Therapeutic Centres (CTCMAM) allows timely identification and treatment of children before they progress into severe malnutrition and associated diseases infection. It is estimated that about 3,990 severely malnourished children U-5 will be covered by this programme in Birnin Kebbi and Augie Local Councils during the pilot phase based on the severe, acute malnutrition rates of 2.5 per cent in Birnin Kebbi and 2.8 in Augie",

Egbuta said.

He added: "What is happening there is that when they (the children) come there, we do a lot of tests to known whether they fall within severe malnutrishment stage. And what is done normally is to test for the appetite of the child. You rule them out, children with constipation, children without constipation. After, those with constipation are normally referred to the healthcentre. Those without constipation are given the Plumpy nuts.

"It is the Plumpy nuts that actually bring them back to life. The Plumpy nuts are novel contraption comprising vitamin A, iodine, ion, folic acid, zinc, as well as the energy. Once the child continues to consume it, the child recovers. It is a process of getting these children back to life and ensuring that they don't die. And when they have been resuscitated, it is then we are able to reduce infant mortality associated with severe malnutrition," he said.

"The key thing here is to assist Nigerian to achieve the MDG-4. MDG-4 demands that we should bring down the level of high infant mortality.

"It is a pilot programme with the state. It is going to go round Nigeria. Wherever there is severe malnutrition, we want to put up that programme.

"It is working, the children you saw in the field, if you saw them two months before, you would not come near them. They were looking like a tread. But now, over two months, they have all recovered. Some mothers are really dancing and rejoicing because of what we have actually done in the life of their children," he said with excitement.

He added: "It is working. In fact, it is a programme I think every state government should have done, to save the lives of our children.

"It is now a combination of the climate, poverty and the economic malaise affecting the entire country. It is manifesting here more because it is now a culmination of so many other factors," he stressed.

Veneman told The Guardian "we are supporting the public health sector to deliver an adequate response to the nutrition 'silent emergency' in this part of the country. Owing to the weak health system in the state, the process will provide a platform for institutional capacity building and deliver other key interventions such as mosquito nets."

Minister of State for Health, Dr. Aliyu Idi Hong who accompanied the UNICEF Executive Director during the visit attested to the efficacy of the programme: "I am impressed and so hopeful that, especially when it comes to a situation like this where communities are fully involved about taking decision and also the management of their health I think, it is a right step in the right direction. This is because you could see that the cardinal principle of health is about individual responsibility.

"The communities are really involved from the development and planning and running of the facilities, we could see that they have complete information about the total statistics of the communities and the catchment areas the hospital is supposed to cover. They are also very careful to know where their limit ends and what are the basic things they are supposed to have provided here. I think this is what I have learnt from this place," he said.

According to the Minister, it is "all about information and education. Naturally, all children are susceptible to being like that, the first six months of life, is usually the most critical. That is why we advise on exclusive breast-feeding. The breast milk keeps the child alive to grow healthily. After six months, when you start supplementation, it is also necessary to know the right combination of diet. Generally in this part of the country, their major staple foods are cereal, which is carbohydrate-based. Carbohydrate-based diet is generally just for energy alone, it does not provide building block for protein. I thick that is where the problem comes from, indicating the need for public awareness about supplemented feeding for children from the age of one to age of five. This is essential and this is why the advocacy comes in.

"We have now asked the communities to mount a very strong advocacy about educating parents on the stages of weaning a child. After six months when they are introducing supplementary feeding, they should make sure that they are doing the right thing. In the North-East where I come from, we were rescued from protein-energy malnutrition because of our staple food which is groundnut. We take groundnut pap, we take groundnut soup, we eat groundnut generously like that and you know groundnut has high quality of protein and fat."

Veneman emphasized the contribution that breastfeeding can make to improving children's nutrition, health and development.

"Under nutrition is an underlying cause in one-third of all U-5 deaths", said Veneman.

"During the first six months of life, breast milk completely meets an infant's nutritional requirements. Yet only 13 per cent of children in Nigeria are exclusively breastfed from birth to six months of age," he said.

Providing encouragement and support to mothers to breastfeed their infants alongside support for the health and wellbeing of mothers is an important key to reducing infant malnutrition.

According to the British Journal of Medicine, Lancet, optimal breast feeding in the first two years of life, and particularly exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, can have the single largest impact on children's survival of all preventive interventions, with the potential to prevent 12 to 15 per cent of all U-5 deaths in the developing world.

"Breast milk offers an excellent source of nutrition for infants and, especially where clean water is lacking, helps keep young children safe from dangerous water-borne illnesses like diarrhoea, maternal and child nutrition", the Journal proclaimed.

"The low exclusive breastfeeding rate signifies a critical, missed opportunity even in states with high antenatal care coverage and corresponds to the high prevalence of severe acute malnutrition. From the recent Demographic and Health Survey results, the exclusive breastfeeding rates has declined by three per cent as compared to 1990 to 2003 when considerable progress was made from one per cent to over 17 per cent.

The report further elucidates: "However, much needs to be done for children and pregnant women to improve coverage for key micronutrients including Vitamin A (77 per cent), zinc (less than five per cent) and iron folate (30 per cent).

There are various reasons for high rates of malnutrition in the country according to experts. They include: Food insecurity based on calorie intake (2,900 calories per day) and non-food expenditure due to poverty as more than half of the population lives below the poverty line. This is compounded by ignorance fuelled by adult illiteracy and early marriage.

"Poor feeding habits are a major contributing factor, including low exclusive breastfeeding and complementary feeding rates. These poor feeding practices were revealed in a study that indicated that most children zero-five months old are fed complementary foods (which continues till six-nine months and after) comprising plain water, non-milk liquids and juice, plus milk other than breast milk given by bottle with a nipple. In addition, the low coverage of key maternal and child health interventions, including Vitamin A, insecticide-treaded nets, antenatal care, immunisation, and in addition to low access to potable drinking water and safe disposal of excreta. Other major causes are the associated infections resulting from low coverage of maternal and child health interventions, such as for diarrhoea diseases, acute respiratory infections, malaria and measles."

The head of UNICEF programme in the country who recently wrapped up a visit to the northern states of Kebbi and Sokoto states pledged nearly $2 million to shore up nutrition treatment programme in Nigeria to stem the unacceptably high child mortality.

Another $1.85 million scheme, which augments UNICEF's nutrition programmes already in place, will support community-based feeding stations where families can bring children to receive preventative and curative assistance.

"Lack of essential health services - malnutrition, inadequate access to clean water and basic sanitation contribute to high rates of child mortality," said Veneman.

"Through close cooperation among all tiers of government in Nigeria including religious and traditional leaders, there is hope," he added.

In 2008, Food and Agriculture Organisation indicated food commodities prices have consistently increased over the previous three years - by nine per cent in 2006, 23 per cent in 2007, and wheat and maize by 130 per cent and 30 per cent in that order in 2008.

In Nigeria, following the United Nations Consolidated Appeal, a high-level taskforce was set up. UNICEF contributed to ensuring protection of all children and women from the adverse effects of the food crisis and through the Executive Director's of the global body's allocation of $3 million to the Nigerian Country Office.

This contribution has been used to strengthen relevant policies and programmes; advocate for the protection of children from the adverse effects of rising food prices; scale up national nutrition programmes and associated health interventions and enhance access to good water and sanitation and education programmes.

UNICEF is also supporting the government of Nigeria in implementing the Accelerated Child Survival and Development (ACSD) strategy, an integrated approach for scaling up delivery of cost effective interventions for improving child survival and development.

The thrust of the ACSD initiative is the selection of low cost and high impact intervention packages such as the strengthening of routine imminisation, vitamin A supplementation, exclusive breastfeeding, Oral Rehydration Therapy and the use of insecticide treated nets (ITNs).

The Guardian Newspaper

Witchcraft, the new epidemic in Nigeria by Sarah Udoh-Grossfurthner

2009-09-10T18:18:00.000-07:00

It seems to be the growing trend that whenever attention-grabbing news comes out of Nigeria these days it invariably must be of the negative kind. It has become so bad that whenever I spy the word 'Nigeria' in any story my heart does a double-take and my first inclination is to skip that particular news altogether. Either that or I put off reading it long enough to collect my thoughts and ready myself for the negative onslaught I know I am bound to find.

Recently a friend in London sent me a BBC News link with the title, Is Witchcraft alive in Africa?' As can be imagined, I did not open that link (which had other links attached to it) for several days. I was afraid that Nigeria would figure prominently in it. When I eventually got up the nerves to open it, I was not disappointed. Blaring out in bold enlarged fonts were the words 'Child-Witches,' of Nigeria Seek Refuge. ' The articles which followed, went on to howl the increasing menace of witchcraft in Nigeria and its most virulent by-products – abuse and torture of children purported to be witches.

As with everything else negative concerning Africa, witchcraft has become the latest 'Cause Celebre' of the international community. In Akwa Ibom, one of the States in Nigeria most affected by the issue of witchcraft, the State Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio is said to be very angry over the issue and he is laying the blame for these tortures squarely on the shoulders of churches and spiritual homes. To that effect, he has promised to 'destroy and demolish every church that is engaged in any stupid vision in Akwa Ibom State.' Although I can understand the Governor's anger and his need to solve this problem quickly, monitoring churches and possibly closing down some that are found guilty, is not going to engender any long-term solution for the simple reason that churches and spiritual homes (though constituting a portion of the ills) are not the root cause of the problem.

I come from a village, not quite up to 20km from Ikot Ekpene – the biggest transit town linking Abia State and Uyo the capital of Akwa Ibom. Up until now there's neither electricity nor pipe born water in my village. The electrical poles that are mounted have been bought with money, collected on an annual basis, from indigenes of the village. The electricity, that one sees occasionally, is transmitted by individually-owned power generating set. Same goes for the pipe born water. Besides these two very basic unmet needs, I have witnessed dire poverty in the homes of people who basically spend 12 hours a day working under extreme weather, at farms jobs which does not bring in enough at the end of their labour to feed, cloth, much less pay the school fees of their children. In the last two years alone Akwa Ibom State is said to have received more than N186 billion as its share of the oil revenue, from the federal account.

If a village that is less than 45km from the capital city of a State that received such an amount (N186 billion) in less than two years, lacks the most basic of fundamental needs like water and electricity, how then will its citizen not turn to those who promise to offer them a semblance of relieve from their seemingly endless daily woes? The fundamental law of economics says that supply can only flourish where there is demand. In Nigeria today extreme hardship and poverty has led to an explosion of churches and spiritual homes. People want to be able to live with a degree of dignity, to afford their children the basics of life, but their country cannot afford them this simple want. So what do they do? Here come phoney churches and their equally phoney pastors all promising 'in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit' to give these people relieve from their hardships. A show of credibility is often mandatory for these churches and their pastors. Simply put, the promises they make to their congregation must be delivered if they are to draw the huge crowd necessary to getting stupendously wealthy in the shortest time possible. And so, to engender that credibility and deliver on those promises, they often resort to demonic and occultic practices to bring about their 'miraculous' powers. In other words, there's a strong correlation between poverty and the proliferation of bogus churches and spiritual homes. Solve, or at least alleviate, some of the hardship and poverty and you reduce this supply-demand chain.

Furthermore, development in any area of course brings not just the positive but also the negative. We've heard of the mind-blowing wealth enjoyed by some churches in Nigeria. It stands to reason therefore, that all kinds of undesirable institutions posing as churches will try to share in this wealth. What do they usually offer their congregations? An ability to cure all ills, engender financial windfall, relieve hardship and restore general well-being. Juxtapose that with a highly superstitious society desperately seeking for ways out of its hardship. And you have avaricious individuals posing as pastors who will do anything - including accusing innocent children of witchcraft and torturing them – to join the exalted ranks of those wealthy churches.

As is often quoted in Nigeria, one bad child can tarnish the reputation of the most virtuous of mothers. With the out-lash that is bound to arise following the declaration of the Governor to 'make examples out of some people' and 'chase out some churches in the State which are found wanting' genuine churches in Akwa Ibom State are going to be under suspicions because of the nefarious activities of wolves in their midst. The saga that is known as Nigeria continues.

Modern Ghana

British Humanist Association: Anti-witchcraft conference attacked by Christian church in Nigeria

2009-09-10T16:52:00.000-07:00

Friday, 31, Jul 2009 12:00

Leo Igwe, a friend of the British Humanist Association and Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Humanist Movement, was attacked yesterday during a raid by 150 to 200 members of a Christian church at a conference he had organised on "Child Rights and Witchcraft" in Calabar.

Leo had recently returned from London where he attended a BHA day conference and other international humanist events held at Conway Hall over the space of a week, including the world's first international conference on "Untouchability", where he was invited to speak on the problem of caste discrimination in Nigeria. Whilst in London he also spoke to the BBC on the problems faced in Nigeria due to religious superstition.

Helen Ukpabio and her church, the Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries, have run a campaign of terror against children and those committed to fighting for their rights, of which yesterday's raid was only the latest development. The conference had been organised by the Nigerian Humanist Movement and the UK charity Stepping Stones Nigeria in response to the widespread abandonment, torture and killing of children in Akwa Ibom and Cross River State due to the belief in child "witches".

As the anti-witchcraft conference began at around 10.30am, the religious protesters dressed in orange raided the venue and began protesting loudly. The extremists were carrying a number of banners with slogans such as, "This protest is organised by The Akwa Ibom State Government", "We give freedom to the witches" and "Stepping Stone is not a registered organisation".

Among the other delegates attacked, Leo Igwe had his glasses smashed and his bag, phone and camera stolen by the mob, who were alternately singing and aggressively disrupting the conference. After an hour and a half, the police turned up and dispersed the mob. One person was arrested.

Speaking after the event Leo said: "The conference was a peaceful meeting for people to openly debate what could be done to prevent the abuse of child rights linked to the belief in witchcraft. This attack by Helen Ukpabio’s supporters once again highlights the depravity of this so-called "woman of God". Such false prophets should be immediately arrested and prosecuted under the child rights act".

Despite the raid the conference, which was well attended by representatives of the Cross River State Government, UNICEF, NAPTIP and a wide range of traditional rulers, students and NGOs, still went ahead successfully.

The issue of child witchcraft has attracted a great deal of media attention since the broadcast of the documentary, Saving Africa’s Witch Children. The documentary, which won the prestigious BAFTA and Amnesty Film awards highlights the role that Helen Ukpabio has played in spreading the belief in child "witches" in South-Eastern Nigeria. Teachings such as the one offered by Helen Ukpabio in her book, Unveiling the Mysteries of Witchcraft, which states that, "a child under two years of age that cries at night and deteriorates in health is an agent of Satan", have caused wide spread international outrage and condemnation of her practices.

Josh Kutchinsky, a Trustee of the British Humanist Association, said today, "Leo is a dear friend. He is knowledgeable, wise and courageous. I know that he is outraged by the damage done by superstition and irrational religiosity to the potential for development in Nigeria. One of his principal methods he uses to combat these problems is to write well crafted and cogent articles. These have been published in national media and have gained considerable attention. His other methods are to organise conferences and to visit others in support of them as individuals or their organisations. He is working with Amnesty International and Stepping Stones Nigera. He is the IHEU representative in West Africa and a representative on the African Commission on Human and People's Rights.

“His intervention in individual cases of injustice, no doubt involve some personal risk. He and his fellow Nigerian Humanists have been awarded the Rainbow Humanist Award by Nordic Rainbow Humanists for their risky public support of LGBT rights in Nigeria."

Speaking from Stepping Stones Nigeria’s office in UK, the charity’s Programme Director, Gary Foxcroft, said: "The prevalence of the belief in child witchcraft in South-Eastern Nigeria can be linked to the books, movies and teachings of Helen Ukpabio. She has made a great deal of money by promoting this superstitious belief and seems willing to do anything to protect her interests. We call upon the Nigerian Federal Government and the Inspector General of Police to act urgently to prevent Helen causing any further embarrassment to Nigeria’s reputation."

In solidarity with the Nigerian Humanist Association, the British Humanist Association has called on the Akwa Ibom State Government to uphold the terms of its Child Rights Act, which was enacted precisely to make accusations of witchcraft against children illegal. On its website www.aksgonline.com/issue_child_abuse.aspx the Akwa Ibom State Government states that it "will not fold its hands and watch evil elements of society dehumanise, demoralise, bastardise, displace, stigmatise, or persecute our children for personal gains."

The Government then states how it will:

· Place full legislative machinery against labelling of children as witches

· Advance high powered investigation into every element of the issues involved and all allegations against persons involved in stigmatisation of children as witches

· Prosecute all persons found culpable of this crime of child labelling

· Deploy social resources for the support, comfort and enjoyment of all categories of children all over the state

· Possibility of closure of every organisation involved in this evil stigmatisation of children

· Government will not spare any culprit involved

Andrew Copson, Director of Education and Public Affairs at the BHA, said today, “Humanists internationally, and many other people who are concerned and appalled by accusations of witchcraft, not least against children, are paying attention to Akwa Ibom State, and will continue to pay attention. The state government must live up to its promises.”

A petition has been set up to help make Helen Ukpabio face justice. Details can be found at:

www.thepetitionsite.com/1/make-helen-ukpabio-face-justice

For more information or comment form Stepping Stones Nigeria please contact Gary Foxcroft, Programme Director, on gary@steppingstonesnigeria.org or 00 9 44 1524 849158.

For further comment from the British Humanist Association please contact Andrew Copson on 020 7079 3584.

British Humanist Association

Recent Religious Attacks and the Failure of Governance in Nigeria

2009-09-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

While many were busy enjoying their summer holiday in the west, Nigerians were busy, trying to grapple with two separate religious ´extremists´ attacks: an attack on all that is western by an Islamic sect known as Boko Haram and a Christian group´s invasion of a child rights conference. The intention here is not to bore you with a repeated account of the incidents rather what we offer is another prism through which the incidents could be viewed with profit to humanism and fairness.

Now, if we want to be simplistic, we could just link the two incidents, via the lifestyles of their leaders, and make our usual submission that the root-cause is religious manipulation which has been made possible by the inability of political leaders to promote and uphold the principles of secularism in Nigeria. Other easily adducible simplistic causes are low literacy level, pervasive poverty which eases recruitment and dearth of science education. But alas, it is more than that!

To start with, the missions of the two groups involved need to be dissected.

Boko Haram is a sect established to spread the teachings and beliefs of Yusufiyya Islamic Movement, which were against western education and civilization, in Nigeria. When this sect, which has a link with AlQuida of Afghanistan, Jamatul Salafia in Algeria and the Talibans of Pakistan, struck in July, over 1000 lives and millions of naira worth of properties were lost. The goal of the strike was to signal the group´s intention to root-out western education and install Quranic-based governance that will ensure equity, justice and good governance.

The second group is the Liberties Foundation Church, Calabar founded by the controversial Pastor Helen Ukpabio, whose Christian mission is devoted to witchcraft exorcism because, according to her, "the power of witchcraft has deprived many of their successes". She is also a movie producer and author of controversial books that teaches women on how to know if their children are witches. Her movies, like ´End of the Wicked´, were also mere instruments to promote her witch-hunting ministry (http://helen-ukpabio.com). The group felt threatened by an enlightenment programme organized on July 29 on child witches, by the Nigerian Humanist Movement and Stepping Stones Nigeria, and disrupted it.

If critically examined, one will discover that there are two symbolic elements in the mission of the groups: ´western education´ and ´belief in witchcraft´. While Boko Haram members see western education as the bane of the pervasive moral lax, corruption, economic injustices and mis-governance, Helen Ukpabio´s group, on the other hand, believed that they were doing the people a great favour, helping them to break their demonic jinxes, believed to have been caused by witches, so that they could be successful and live meaningfully.

These groups operate openly not clandestinely. In fact, no one in the Aso Rock (Nigeria´s White House) can claim, for instance, to be ignorant of the activities of Boko Haram because countless security reports have been written on the group´s activities. Yet those in government could do nothing to suppress the group´s growing popularity, mainly among the poorest of the poor in the north. And contrary to some lies in some newspapers, the group´s attacks were predominantly on government facilities and even prison (where many perceived to have been unjustly incarcerated were released).

Again, many will agree with me that science alone is not enough to displace belief in witchcraft. Rather prosperity and a functional social security system with science can do the magic. On this premise, one can say that Helen´s group´s activities is buoyed by the helplessness of the people; but the invasion of the free speech space, the conference, as I see it, is a product of her group´s knowledge of the lax in justice and human rights system. (The idea that she could get away unscratched with such a legally abominable act).

Viewed from the foregoing perspectives, both incidents, to me, are nothing but reactions to the failure of the administrators of the entity called Nigeria to provide for, protect and guarantee justice to its citizens. Religious or secular, any intervention that neglects this submission is bound to fail for its unfairness. QED

American Chronicle