As I said before, this is so horrible. It's heartbreaking seeing all those little infants being so traumatized because their village wants to blame everything they can't explain, on the innocent. People shouldn't be so gullible when someone just comes along feeding them false words. People should read the bible themselves first, not have a fraudulent pastor try and brainwash them, when their only true goal is to get some Naira out of them. There are so many uninformed people back home, it seems like they'll never change, not with all the laws you can think of.

tng:

I agree with Ukpabio that there are witches everywhere and children are actually potential witches or wizards but that is no reason for them to be maimed or whatever like has been described here.

oh wow, the ignorance.

@Luca:

I got your e-mail and sent you a response.   BLESS your heart.

Nijacutee: Please drop me an e-mail.

@Gamine: I know there are 3 three threads on the same topic.  The difference between mine and theirs is that I am TRYING to be pro-active. Not selling my mouth.

blackspade:

As I said before, this is so horrible. It's heartbreaking seeing all those little infants being so traumatized because their village wants to blame everything they can't explain, on the innocent. People shouldn't be so gullible when someone just comes along feeding them false words. People should read the bible themselves first, not have a fraudulent pastor try and brainwash them, when their only true goal is to get some Naira out of them. There are so many uninformed people back home, it seems like they'll never change, not with all the laws you can think of.

It will really take a long time to change their mind sets. A girl no older than ten, branding a 4 year old girl a WITCH!

Angelheart:

@Luca:

I got your e-mail and sent you a response.   BLESS your heart.

Nijacutee: Please drop me an e-mail.

@Gamine: I know there are 3 three threads on the same topic.  The difference between mine and theirs is that I am TRYING to be pro-active. Not selling my mouth. 

Excuse you.  



There is an organization you can contact directly

Sam Ikpe-Itauma, Director

Child's Right And Rehabilitation Network (CRARN),
Ikot Afaha-Idung Ukpa,
P. M. B. 1042 Eket, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.
Visit our websites @ www.crarn.org or Childs Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN)
Phone (Hotline ): +2348026693099
Talk to the children direct, call +2348086754666
Regististered with Corperate Affairs Commission Abuja, Nigeria.
Charity Number: CAC/IT/No 27195

Some of us can be PRO-ACTIVE without wearing it on our foreheads or going about it all holier than thou!

I'm not trying to be holier than thou,  I am trying to do something here.

I'd suggest anyone who wants to help CONTACT the already established Organization DIRECTLY!

Im glad it took this thread for you to share this info. All not in vain

Rotflmao! Okay, it was after I posted the info that it kinda occurred to me that I may have inadvertently rained on your "saving the day" parade, so If it makes you feel better to think, please go ahead.

The truth is. . . I thought it was about the children, not who got the info first. Silly me.

Gotta say though, if info gathering was as easy as you think getting the contact info for the organziation was. . . You won't be here still requesting emails, no? Aaah, all still besides the point.

Good Bless the little Children and those who have chosen to help.

how does akwa ibom = nigeria or even africa.

abuse of any kind is bad and evil.  immediately i watched the programme, i saw Modupe Debbie Ariyo's of afruca finger print all over it.

aruyo who see nothing wrong with being a member of the grail message and amorc yet she think it is her human right to stop african churches establishing in the uk.  she use all the media space she can get toward this end. it is a shame.  what has christianity got to do with witchcraft?   witches has always ben in africa and will always be in africa

you know we are in trouble when small oyibo man is needed to deliver us from another evil.  this documentary is just another cheap shot at the church in general.

since you asked this is the one on south africa. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/ontv/unreported_world/south+africa+body+parts+for+sale/2513367

benin republic http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/ontv/unreported_world/benin+voodoo+children/1944347

by the way i see also many people are also collecting money for this guy already. good to know money is good for this bandwagon. http://www.crarn.org/ Bandwidth Limit Exceeded. amazing now they have got the money rolling in they can get more bandwith or witchwith


Fundraising target: £20,000.00
Donations so far: £ 17,478.00 source http://www.justgiving.com/witchchildren


Nigerian children demand their rights
About the charity : Stepping Stones Nigeria Stepping Stones Nigeria
SSN is a grassroots child rights charity working to protect, save and transform the lives of vulnerable children in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria. It works with local partners on some of the most challenging issues that children face such as child trafficking and the abandonment and torture of so-called child "witches".
Charity Registration No 1112476

since you asked this is the one on south africa.  http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/ontv/unreported_world/south+africa+body+parts+for+sale/2513367

benin republic   http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/ontv/unreported_world/benin+voodoo+children/1944347

the wonderful as seen on telivision generation. what a shame.  gulible people

@angelheart
please don't let the negative comments dampen your enthusiasm,i have sent you an email as for the established charities i personally have a bias towards any charity in nigeria because of the reputation, from what you emailed me about the fund sourcing,ill be very careful about raising money without knowing what it ll be used for or finding out later that its been embezelled,moreover looking at jjyou's comments and that ill prefer committing funds where i can actually dictate what needs been done

Please Click on Title to go to the website

Childs Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN)

What is CRARN?
Child's Right and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) is a charity organisation with a firm belief in, and intent on safeguarding the rights of a child. It was founded in 2003 with a view to reducing the alarming rate of street and abandoned children and to ensure their rehabilitation, including other vulnerable children, particularly in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

CRARN'S VISION
Worried by the increasing rate of abandoned and street children in our society and the attacks on them due to stigmatization that they are witches and wizards, and their susceptibility to child trafficking syndicates and ritualists, CRARN came up with an idealistic and a pragmatic approach to address this nagging issue. We believe that these children who are easy victims of modern-day slavery, cheap labour, rape and defilement could be harnessed to become responsible citizens via educational and vocational training.

CRARN hopes that if the issue of child abandonment and street children is properly addressed, a good number of children will not only be saved from the scourge of HIV/AIDS , and other dangers, but the society, too will be saved from the nuisance and security threat that will arise from them in the nearest future.

For those interested in their past activitivies,  please visit this link Annual Reports

Contact us at:
Child's Right and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN), No1 Abat Rd
Ikot Afaha Idung Ukpa, P.O.Box, 564 Eket, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria
Phone: +2348026693099
E-mail: childsright1@Yahoo.com, crarninfo@gmail.com

Or
The President , CRARN (Mr Sam Ikpe-Itauma)
Phone: +2348050547730, +2348026693099
E-mail: itaumason@yahoo.com, samofcrarn@gmail.com

Or
The Secretary, CRARN (Mr Umoh Akpan Umoh)
Phone: +2348025685758
E-mail: umdicksonsphill@yahoo.com

Or
The Treasurer, CRARN (Mr Emmanuel Okon Emmanuel)
Phone: +2348025462672
E-mail: mm1n2003@yahoo.com

I also have testimonials from members of another Nigerian forum, who participated in a fund raising event last year for this organization and are in the middle of one for this year. I'd post the link, unfortunately I don't think TPTB here on Nairaland allow you to post links for other forums.

Not trying to force anyone to do anything a certain way, at the end the day. . . it is for CHILDREN. It doesn't matter how it is done, as long as it is done.

Some of us can be PRO-ACTIVE without wearing it on our foreheads or going about it all holier than thou!

Exactly.

What have you done

naijacutee:

7 in 10 of the donations on the JustGiving page are from British people. My point is - these things happen in our backyards - why do they seem to care more than we do?
.

Maybe cos that's not the ONLY charity for this situation? Have you checked the others?

@Luca
Nah! Not dampened at all. . Ig glad it came out of your mouth that you are personally 'have a bias towards any charity in nigeria because of the reputation'. Id be crucified- Not that I care

@JJYOU: I said a link where KIDS are branded as witches. Lets keep it in tandem here.

AGAIN: to all those that keep enquiring and rendering their support, thank YOU!

Angelheart:

@Luca
Nah!  Not dampened at all. . Ig glad it came out of your mouth that you are personally 'have a bias towards any charity in nigeria because of the reputation'. Id be crucified- Not that I care

@JJYOU: I said a link where KIDS are branded as witches. Lets keep it in tandem here.

AGAIN: to all those that keep enquiring and rendering their support, thank YOU!

FUNNY

http://www.justgiving.com/witchchildren

Fundraising target: £20,000.00
Donations so far: £ 18,053.00

someone pls help this girl. i know she is not a witch but she is human and desperate.

[b]Teenage girl raped, impregnated by runaway teacher, abandoned by family[/b]
From CHIDI NNADI, Enugu
Wednesday, November 19, 2008

* More Stories on This Section

For Blessing Nwafor, 17, from Nwaezeko, Abakiliki in Ebonyi State life has become a misery as her family members and others she had run to have abandoned her. Now, the doctors say her life is in danger as she is discharging yellowish fluid mixed with blood.

The travails of the vulnerable young girl started when on April 16, this year her lesson teacher whose name she could only remember as Stanley E. raped and impregnated her in the process.

According to Blessing, an SS3 student of St. Jude Secondary School, Nwaezeko, Abakiliki, she had gone to Stanley’s house to collect her Mathematics textbook she would use to do a test the next day in school when the lesson teacher started preaching to her about love.

“He told me that he loves me and that he would want us to make love. I told him no, that he is too old for my age and that I am his student, but he grabbed me and locked his door. He raised the volume of his radio as I started shouting. He tore my shirt and pants and raped me as I was crying and begging him to leave me alone.

After making love to me he told me sorry and I left his house crying. People in the neighbourhood were asking me what happened, but I could not tell them because I was ashamed,” she said.
After she was raped by Stanley who also told her that he works with the Ebonyi State government, Blessing missed her monthly period in April, making her return to Stanley ’s house to tell him of the development.

She told Daily Sun that Stanley only gave her 16 tablets. She could not say their names and brand and asked her to take eight in the morning and another eight in the evening.
She said after taking the drugs, she became uncomfortable for the whole day, but nothing happened and she did not tell her parents of what transpired.
But after four months, she became very sick and as this was persistent and regular she told her elder sister what had happened to her.

Her elder sister then told their mother who told their father. Unfortunately for her, her no nonesense father swore that she would not bear a bastard in his house.
Thus her father, Mr Chinedu Nwafor, took her to Stanley’s house, but they were shocked to see that he had packed out from the house and vamoosed into the thin air.
Those living in the neighbourhood told them that Stanley had packed out in the dead of the night soon after Blessing came to tell him that she was pregnant.
Her father also took her to the Ebonyi State Government house, but the government workers said they knew nobody with named Stanley E.

Last month, Blessing’s father chased her away, telling her never to come home again.
As she was wandering on the street, a Good Samaritan doctor saw her and took her to his house, but the doctor’s wife did not like the idea of her husband bringing home a strange pregnant teenager.
According to Blessing, she stayed in the house of the doctor for one month. When he contacted her elder sister and she was taken to St. Jude’s Hospital in Abakiliki.

“ At St. Jude, they did scan for me and said that they saw a baby boy, but that part of the body of the baby is damaged already. So, they told my sister that they would need N150,000 to carry out an operation on me for me to survive. This made my sister to abandon me there and run away.

“This was happening around 7p.m. so the doctor there said I should be allowed to pass the night there and to leave in the morning. I pleaded with the doctor to carry out the operation as I pledged that after it I will be working for his hospital to defray the bill, but he refused and instead gave me N500 to go home.
“I used the N500 to go back to the first doctor that took me to his hospital; when I explained to him what happened he said there was nothing he could do again, he gave me N300 to go back to my house.
“But when I got home, my father disowned me completely, saying that his daughter who bears Blessing had long died. I cried and cried, but he chased me away.

“This happened on a Sunday and I left and was wandering until Tuesday when I decided to go to Father Mbaka in Enugu for Adoration Worship. After Adoration, I wanted to see Father Mbaka, but the security men did not allow me and on Thursday the security men chased me away. I stayed outside the Adoration centre gate.

“It was at the gate that two boys and two girls saw me and bought me food after which they paid my fare to St Mary Catholic Church, Trans-Ekulu, Enugu last Thursday. At the church one of the reverend fathers gave me N300 to go home, but I remained in the church because I had no place to go to,” Blessing explained.

At the close of church service on Sunday, Blessing began another walk into the unknown when she now met the President of Global Society for Anti-Corruption, Mr Frank Ezeona by the side of St Mary Catholic Church who bought her food.
After eating, she said that Ezeona also gave her some tissue papers from his car with which she changed her pad and later brought her to Daily Sun office in Enugu where Blessing who was sobbing profusely asked other Nigerians to come to her rescue.
Moved by her plight, Ezeona, therefore, called on public-spirited individuals, as well as the Ebonyi and Enugu State Governments to come to the aid of Blessing before she dies.

@jjyou
do you have an email or link anyone interested in helping can go to?and what the status of the girl is at the moment
@angelheart
still awaiting

http://www.afruca.org/
found this in an article i was reading online,they r based in the united kingdom and appears to be doing a lot concerning children's rights and alleviating their conditions /standard of living e.t.c

lucabrasi:

http://www.afruca.org/
found this in an article i was reading online,they r based in the united kingdom and appears to be doing a lot concerning children's rights and alleviating their conditions /standard of living e.t.c

this debbie aruyo girl is doing more to give nigerians a bad name than any white man i know. did you listen to her on voice of africa?  you would believe all nigerians do is abuse kids every day.

i know she has to make her fundings from the lottery funds and co but is that a licence to insult every nigerian going about his/her business legitimately? she wants laws allowing people registering places of christian worship changed failing to recognise they use the same law that allowed her register her one woman band charity.

afruca indeed. please check the accounts filed at the charities commission and see where the money goes
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/registeredcharities/ScannedAccounts/Ends27/0001093027_ac_20080331_e_c.pdf  pay attention to page 20, 21, 28 and 29 and see how much the wonderful afruca spend on paying herself

open your eyes people and dont be so gulible. imagine using £148k to manage questionable charitable expenditures of of £62k. only in england as they say

open the attached doc and see the sumary for yourself

Witches: FG expresses concern over UK child witch documentary

THE Federal Government on Monday expressed concern over a television documentary aired by a British Channel.
This was contained in a statement from the Nigeria High Commission in London and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.

The documentary showed children being tortured under a purported deliverance and exorcism service by some religious leaders in Akwa Ibom State.

The documentary, which was first aired across the UK on November 12 was entiled: ''Saving Africa’s Witch Children.” According to the statement, government is appalled that such despicable and vicious cultural and religious practices still subsist in some parts of Nigeria, in spite of government’s efforts at promoting the welfare of children through appropriate policies, programmes and legislations.

The statement said government would collaborate with relevant religious bodies to eliminate such evil practices in their mode of worship.

It noted that the country was multi-ethnic with varied religious and cultural practices and belief systems deeply rooted in the history and psyche of the people.

The statement, however, noted that it was not unexpected that practices purporting to exorcise witchcraft and sorcery were still pervasive in the country. “There is therefore, the need for mass education, public awareness, media advocacy and sensitisation to the States and Local Government levels, especially in the rural areas on such harmful practices,” it stated.

It also noted the determination of the Federal Government to work in close collaboration with the States and the Local Governments against such retrogressive belief systems, especially those affecting the welfare of innocent children.
The statement noted that government had adopted several treaties to curb such negative cultural practices in accordance with international standards.

These include the domestication of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Nigeria is a signatory, by ensuring that the Child Rights Act was adopted by the National Assembly in 2003.
It explained further that Nigeria was also a signatory to the African Union Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, which was also domesticated in 2000.

The statement also added that 17 states had enacted similar legislations, as pointed out in the particular case of Akwa Ibom State by Gov. Godswill Akpabio in the documentary under reference.
NAN recalls that the British Prime Minister, Mr Gordon Brown at the just concluded UN High Level Meeting on Interfaith and Inter-cultural Dialogue in New York had alleged that a school existed in Abuja funded by extremist group, poisoning children’s minds and attracting them to a life of terrorism.
“Recently in Abuja in Nigeria I visited school where children were either sitting on the floor without a desk or were sitting three to the desk that had been built for one.”

- Culled from Todays Punch newspaper 25/11/2008 (Page 9)

It is somewhat reassuring that sometimes, there are sensible people within the government. [s]Who do not necessarily share the opinions of some people on this thread[/s]

did anyone here listen to the oyibo boy , debbie aruyo and beresford or whatever he calls himself on voice of africa turn akwa ibom to whole nigeria thing?

@jjyou
i honestly dont know anything about her or her charity other than what i found in a very good article written about the child witches thing by a nigerian diasporan,and from the cursory look i had of the website,she appeared to be doing a good job of child rights, ill check out the link you posted later but if she actually does all that,then im up for us raising these issues and maybe emailing the charity commission, for all we know she is getting paid all these funds because of the mistaken believe on their part that she is doing a lot for these children, remember most of them are quite clueless of the problems being faced by ethnic minorities anyway

@punch article
the presidency/fg are always concerned about everything but rarely do they take decisive actions,
the uzoma okere thing-fg/presidency concerned and have called for investigations, we have not heard anything back
the ribadu/sss e.t.c-fg concerned,investigation

i could go on and on,so personally untill they take proper and verifiable actions,then its all media soundbites as far as im concerned

so the fact that the debbie ariyo is operating a charity means she is above criticism??
please lets be very careful here,she is just an individual,and the main priority here are the recipients(abused children e.t.c)so if her operating the charity with public money is not seen to conform to the objectives then i support her being criticised,
btw, you do not know any one of us on here so how are you sure that we do not volunteer for charities?or would you rather we started naming them on here to prove "we are worthy"of criticising debbie ariyo??
it is not justified to pay herself exorbitant salaries because that is totally wrong morally and incencitive to the people she is supposed to be providing a service to,even prine william/harry's charity in south africa(not sure which)came under a lot oif criticisms lately even though it is not based here,just because the money wasnt going to the recipients fast enough and because of the needless luxuries the charity were spending money on