Over in the Democratic Republic of Congo there is a huge problem. The folks there are poor and many of them are rather superstitious when it comes to who to blame family troubles on. Kids eight years of age and younger are being shuttled off to churches and ministers for sessions promising to deliver them from demons for a hefty fee. The lucky kids are forced to vomit out objects [which were inserted into their bodies by the ministerics] and thus vomit out Satan too. The less fortunate are dumped in the streets, beaten, forced to leave home and become children of the street.
Street living is hard in Congo. The natives do not have spare change, often having difficulties themselves when it comes to feeding their families. [Jobs do not always pay on a regular basis and that includes government positions]. Ex-pat Americans and India Indians are well-off tooling around in their Mercedes et. al. but they are in a distinct minority of 1 percent. 14% of the water is potable, meaning the other 86% is contaminated and vectors of disease. Street kids wash in filthy water in alleyways when they can. They eat when they can. Some manage to get into shelters. Unfortunately, the shelters often provide a place to sleep and education for a year. The aim is to reunite the children with their families. The method is education: It is irrational and cruel to believe that your child is a witch.
Women are gang-raped [sometimes by government Mau-Maus] and have their genitals pierced or multilated in the act of. They then go to hospitals where they face operations to repair perforated anuses or to reconstruct genitals out of what is left. Some become pregnant by their rapists, adding yet another difficulty to becoming mainstreamed back into Congolese society. A few of the lucky ones learn how to make shea butter, perhaps selling it to places like Bath & Bodyworks for a pittance.
[Yes, some men have also been brutalized by the Mau-Maus and raped. The vast majority of gang rape vics in Congo are women].
Then there are the widows who have been accused of witchcraft. They wind up in witch camps where the chiefs beat them, demanding that they do labor. Some of them can't physically draw water several times a day or labor in the fields. If a grandchild comes to live with them at the camp in order to help them, that grandchild is often rejected by the family that originally accused their widowed relations of being witches.
This stuff has been documented since 1999 as happening in Congo. Why the fuck haven't we heard much if anything about it?
radical sapphoq
http://www.thefullmonte.com
Congo
http://etext.virginia.edu
Congo
http://scotlandonsunday
Congo
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls
Congo
http://www.everyculture.com/Bo
sterilized picture of Congo cultures
http://news.independent.co.uk
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD
gang rapes of Congolese women, also disgusting
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD
rapes in eastern Congo, toward the bottom
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
http://www.timesonline.co.uk
London kids being taken to Congo by their parents and being dumped there.
http://www.charismatic.org
five pentecostal churches in Congo
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006
http://www.witchesinexile.com/
Uganda witch camps
http://www.fiacat.org/en/spip
Benin, Nigeria, Liberia, Angola, South Africa, Cameroon, and ESPECIALLY IN the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
http://hrw.org/campaigns/drc
Katanga [in Congo]
http://media.guardian.co.uk
Congo
http://skepdic.com/witches.html
skepdic on witches
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