Churches respond to witchcraft revelations

London’s Pentecostal churches are responding to the child ‘witches’ scandal with training and education.

Horrific cases of brutality to children in the name of a blend of bogus ‘Christianity’ and African traditional religion shocked Britain last year.

More than three hundred Congolese and Angolan Protestant pastors and church leaders have attended or booked onto ‘child safe-guarding training’ run by the Churches Child Protection Advisory Service since February.

And the African and Caribbean Evangelical Alliance have stepped up their involvement with the ‘emerging churches’ of the African diaspora.

Now one of the leading pentecostal churches in Britain, Jesus House in Barnet, is holding a national symposium in Westminster on witchcraft in African religion on 22 May to be chaired by Anglican Bishop of Willesden, Peter Broadbent. The Church Mission Society’s Africa Director Dennis Tongoi and SOAS’ Professor of African Religion Paul Gifford will fly to Britain for the event.

Jesus House is keen to distance true Christianity from the scandal, which it blames on rogue traditional healers infiltrating churches and exploiting ignorant and vulnerable worshippers.

Angus Stickler of the BBC - who will address the symposium - won the Foreign Correspondent of the Year Award last year for his coverage of child exorcisms which he tracked from Britain back to Angola – a story which authorities in Britain attempted to prevent with a court injunction.

Police set up ‘Project Violet’ in June 2005, before the trial in July of Sita Kisanga and her two accomplices who had tortured an eight-year-old girl from Hackney known as Child B. She was said to “have” witchcraft — kindoki in Lingala, the language of Congolese people in Congo and Angola.

Child ‘witches’ are increasingly blamed for misfortunes in the family, whose stability is threatened in war-torn countries like Congo and Angola, according to Dr Richard Hoskins, expert witness in the Child ‘B’ case. According to sources, bogus or ill-educated pastors charge parents sometimes large sums for ‘exorcising’ the children – sometimes literally by ‘beating the devil out of them’, or starving them to death.

Said Pastor Agu Irukwu, Overseer of the Nigerian-derived Jesus House for all Nations and Chairman of the Redeemed Christian Church of God with more than 200 ‘parishes’ in UK: ‘There is no way this can be called Christianity. We are on a mission to teach and to explain – as well as to contribute positively into a situation that is vastly neglected.

’These are relatively new communities coming to Britain and we have to help build bridges, and increase education so that these kinds of activities cease.’

The extent of the problem in Britain is not yet known, although research commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills still awaits publication. There are no standard classifications for this crime, making keyword searches of social services and police records unreliable. Secular agencies rarely have the language for what they uncover. ‘Ritual child abuse’ is a misnomer, as ceremonial is rarely involved.

CCPAS, in partnership with the Metropolitan Police Child Abuse Investigation Command, has distributed thousands of copies of its booklet Safe and Secure: Insuring the Well-being of Children and Young People within the Church Community to African churches and secular care professionals, following a conference in February.

Exorcism – and its abuse - is evident in all cultures, but is not well understood. Islam advocates exorcism for children possessed by djins or spirits. There have been 38 Anglican exorcisms in the last five years, eight involving children through prayer said in the child’s absence.

Police are anxious to play down the issue for community relations reasons, and for fear of driving the situation further underground. They say that of 8,500 allegations of child abuse per year in London, only 51 in the last five years have concerned what they call ‘faith crimes’ of this nature – with just eight convictions in all. ‘It is important to put it in perspective’, says Inspector Bob Pull of Project Violet.