Good morning/afternoon generation now, Im Isabella and I am here today to talk to you about saving Africa’s witch children. The Niger River Delta in Africa is a living hell for many of its people. Many massively large industrial projects have poisoned the water and the land. Sickness and disease are rampant. The source of the problems is clear but most people don’t blame the government, instead they have decided to turn on their own children and blame them instead.
Encouraged by a group of preachers tell these parents to believe that their bad luck is the work of Satan, given human form in their own offspring. The children are accused of making people ill, poisoning food and polluting the drinking water. Condemned as ‘Satan made flesh’ by powerful pastors, the children are abandoned, tortured, starved and sometimes even murdered. These same ministers also offer to exorcise the devil from the children for large sums of money. In doing this they have created a striking industry and made themselves wealthy, while condemning many families to poverty.
Through the documentary an educated man of witchcraft narrates some of the film explaining how children are treated he works in the country of Nigeria taking in witch craft children and giving them a home, education and a place to live. Everyday many parents stop by this place dropping their children off without a care wanting to get rid of them. Gary Foxcroft receives many children a day ranging from ages of anywhere from just 3 months to about 10 years old. about 12 years ago the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network began by providing a home to four children branded witches; now it has over 150 in a temporary shelter and school.
The people there struggle to provide food and clothing for the children and the little ones themselves live with the knowledge that their own parents have rejected them. The charity has few resources and struggles to survive. change slide Everyday about 5-6 children are branded as witches, once a child is stigmatised as a witch it is very difficult for someone to accept the child back therefore leading to a lot of assault and abuse (show chapter 4:46 ) their immediate families do this in attempt to punish or even kill them.
Self-styled pastors and prophets, greedy for cash, teach the parents that many problems they are facing, like poverty, joblessness, financial crisis, sickness or poor harvest are all caused by a witch-child hiding in their families. Then, the superstitious parents start to guess which of their sixth, seventh or eighth child is a witch. They end up choosing the one who has something different about him or her one who is the most mischievous, strong willed or the most intelligent among the children in the big family. I witchcraft has been around for several years now and this is a common occurring problem in Nigeria.
As of over the past five years the number of tortured and killed children has not decreased. change slide Saving african witch children includes many techniques in getting the point across that witchcraft is a major issue being faced in Nigeria and letting people know what is happening on the other side of this world and that not everyone lives the way we do here. The particular viewpoint in saving african witch children is that this is a terrible issue and is in no way humane and people do need to be weary of this.
The point that witchcraft is a bad issue did get across in this documentary. many camera angles were used in this documentary such as close ups, medium shots and wide shots this is used to communicate meaning and and emotion about the characters. Uninflected cuts are used in this documentary, the Filmmakers want to communicate meaning with the cut, with the shift from one piece of visual information to another piece of visual information; as soon as the cut comes in it gives the viewer sufficient information to form new judgments on the issue.
Statistics are used to give the viewers are bigger understanding of how bad the issue is and shows them that its not just made up but it is in fact the truth and reality. When children were interviewed they had sad music bringing emotion to the viewers and the fact that many scenarios had been filmed and showed on tape whether it be showing the journalist interviewing the exorcist, interviewing the children, interviewing the parents and how they reveal that they want their children gone.
Most of the documentary that was filmed showed every part of the children’s and families lives really giving you an insight to the story They had shown kids that had been tortured, their scar marks were shown and even a scene where a man was threatening to slaughter a little girl that was, well so they thought a witch (chapter 7 0:53-1:40. this was just one out of many terrifying scenes of the documentary. But with all the graphic imagery, the social issue did get across, raising the awareness of “witchcraft” and child abuse and showing that this is a serious issue. change slide
Background information that was researched about this topic is shown all around throughout this documentary. All the information on witchcraft in Nigeria is covered throughout the film in a graphical way, the documentary explains all the necessary and correct information on what a witch kid is and what happens to the children. OThe aim of this documentary was to raise awareness of what is happening in Nigeria and help stop the crime of abuse towards young children, this was achieved because now most people are aware of what has been going on and do realise how serious this matter really is.
This has helped a lot as the Nigerian government is aware and working on solutions. Faced with this crisis Gary Foxcroft takes the children from the child rights and rehabilitation centre orphanage to the governor’s residence to demand assistance and to ask that laws be made to punish anyone who harms children. In 2008 the government approved the Child Rights Law. It became illegal and a criminal activity to label children as witches. But the law was never seriously enforced. A few years ago a father beheaded his own son because he believed he was a witch.
The boy was starving in the streets, without anyone wanting to help him. Once he came to the back of his house and asked his brother for a bowl of soup. His father heard his voice, ran after him and severed his head with an axe. This man worked for the government as a public servant. He was arrested and let go one day later because of “lack of evidence. ” (Tihomir, 2014) but as of now they have reinforced the law and if anyone is seen convicted of accusing a child of witchcraft they are to face up to ten years in prison under the child rights act.
