Child Witches: The Democratic Republic of the Congo

By CJ Maloney
Photos by Jonathan Alpeyrie

    Trying to eke out an existence in the midst of all the squalor, violence, and poverty of Kinshasa, the war-torn capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), live approximately 40,000 Congolese street children. They are not there due to the war; they are there because of their parents. The latest horror that the Congolese people have gotten into is that they are accusing their children of being witches and either killing them or casting them out into the streets. This has gotten so prevalent that according to UNICEF and the UN there are anywhere between 15,000 to 40,000 children, mostly between the ages of 3 and 13, living on the streets of Kinshasa.

    Now this is an approximation, since the DRC exists in a Land of the Approximate. Nobody really knows the true number, and God only knows what goes on in the rural areas or the completely anarchistic eastern part of the country. The street children do not stand out among other Congolese because of their suffering. Except for the few strongmen at the top, everybody suffers in the Congo. It is the children's age and the fact that it was their own parents who put them in this bind which sets them apart. Human beings have always taken pleasure in abusing each other; but it is rare to see parents abuse their own children to such an extreme.

    From the day they're accused of witchcraft, the children struggle to survive - parentless - in a country devoid of anything resembling the rule of law. Consequently, Congolese life is chock full of arbitrary adult cruelty and the children are not immune as targets. Additionally, since the average Congolese man on the street most certainly does believe in witches, these children can expect little if any help from the adult world. And that is about what they get. A special fear for all Congolese children is the cult "pastor". The pastor is a lethal combination of medicine man, high priest, and judge. They will approach families and offer to "cleanse" child witches for a fee. He also operates in the opposite direction, fingering a child as a witch, placing the child in immediate danger. Parents also seek out such men, looking for someone to give them support for the witchcraft accusations against their child or a cure for it.

    In order to see one of these pastors at work, we traveled by jeep one hundred miles from the capital to the village of Kinsiona. There we were led by our translator to a rude structure constructed from branches and leaves. Inside, among a curious crowd, were a pastor, his two assistants, and four small child "witches". Upset at our presence (and being part of an outlawed cult) the pastor and his two assistants refused to give their names. Yet the head pastor allowed us to stay and take numerous pictures. So I doubt if given the chance he'd build much of a criminal empire. But he had brains and authority enough to have four small children on their knees before him awaiting his judgement.

    The children (who had already been accused of witchcraft) knelt on the dirt floor in front of the pastor. He performed various rituals, what they were is of no importance. The fact that all involved believe that the children are in fact witches is of the utmost importance. The pastor also performed some rituals on the mother, such as placing his foot on her sexual organs to make sure that she would not bear anymore witches. While you might chortle over your breakfast at people believing such absurdity, make no mistake that many Congolese most certainly do believe it.

    After all was said and done, the pastor claimed that "more work" (and hence more money) was needed to cleanse these witch children. The parents left with the children in tow. Being impoverished, they might very well decide to part with their children rather than their money. According to many reports, Congolese parents use the accusation of witchcraft as a pretext for ridding themselves of an extra mouth to feed. No doubt this is true. But no doubt it is also true that many do believe it. Either way, thus grows the ranks of Kinshasa's street children.

    While in the capital, we used our contacts to be introduced to a gang of street children lead by Bigassa, a 25 year old man. He is a five year veteran of the streets and plays Fagan to about seventy or so Oliver Twists. Bigassa ordered one of the older children, a 16 year old street veteran dressed in an Iron Maiden tee-shirt, to perform escort and protection duties. The gangs of Kinshasa are not like the ones we see in America. No chest pounding macho names, color coded clothes, or days spent hanging on street corners for them. They are much poorer, to get food requires much time and effort. Some street children have odd jobs, but with the social stigma they live under it is not easy to find one. (Kinshasa's moribund economy is not creating many, anyhow.) A day without food is not unusual for these children. Many of the children are not near the same height or weight as American children of a similar age; mal-nutrition and disease (particularly malaria) are common. You do not see obese people in Kinshasa. Unlike America's gang children, who usually have at least a mother in their lives, these children are bereft of any discipline or parental authority at all. Consequently, by the time a street child hits 15 or 16 he is by all accounts irretrievably lost to a brutal code of violence. The older children are much feared, and with good reason. Within a week of our arrival four policemen, armed with AK-47s, were ambushed and massacred by a gang of children. They had ventured into the Cemetery of Gombe in Kinshasa's former European quarter. It is well known that at night the cemetery belongs to the child street gangs - one enters at great risk. The children have become a "social problem" far beyond the ability of the government to handle. If they even cared to, that is. Of all the fears that manifest themselves in Kinshasa, none beat the soldiers and police of "President" Joseph Kabila, the strongest of DRC's strongmen. Congolese have learned from an early age that you do not cross paths with the army. Whether power is in the hands of Belgium colonial masters or a home grown dictator, this has always held true. The street children are targeted by the occasional police sweep and dumped into Kinshasa's rancid prisons for a few days before being released. The police have a reputation for cruelty towards those that fall into their hands. Children are no exception.

    The army continuously casts nets to round up the children for induction into the military. (The rebel forces do so, too, in the rural areas.) According to Amnesty International, "thousands" of DRC's children become soldiers in this manner. The children must be ever on the lookout for these roundups, which can fall on them at anytime. The girls are frequently used as sex slaves for the older soldiers, the boys as cannon fodder. Reports have some children volunteering for the army, hoping for food. Children from the local area do not venture far from the homes that they used to live in. With the social stigma of being a witch hanging over their head, though, home might as well be on another planet. It is in their past, irretrievable. They band together as much out of necessity as out of a need for companionship. It is much easier to survive as a group than as an individual. The gang is usually led by an older, more experienced child. With the societal breakdown brought on by the civil war, the cases of witch accusations have taken a corresponding upturn. The children have many companions to choose from.

    There are female as well as male children. The females have an advantage - if you could call it that - in that they can sell their bodies. Child prostitution is common among them. Age does not seem to be a barrier to entry, girls as young as five are reported to be selling themselves for money.

    Bigassa's gang escorted us throughout Kinshasa, allowing access to a part of their world. We saw them sleep upon the ground at night, bathe in filthy alleyways, and try to obtain food. The children displayed the wondrous curiosity innate to children everywhere. The children, especially the older ones, are prone to violence; they know of no other code. This trait does not make them stand out in a country like the DRC. Amigo Gonde of the local rights group Asadho recently said that, "there are many places in Kinshasa where street children are violently dealt with". Like all survivors in such a place, they must give as well as take. The children live day to day. Endless searches for food, avoiding government forces, and dealing with the social stigma of being a "witch" constitutes their existence. They dream no dreams of a better world, survival takes up all their time. As Nadine Giese (a local child activist) stated, "for them, the real struggle is just to live another day". And that's about all.

    There are a few glimmers of hope for the children of Kinshasa's streets, one such comes from an organization centuries old - the Jesuits. It is the Center Monsieur Munzihirwa, located in Kinshasa's City area. Run-off of donations from the outside world (which, when you come to think of it, is pretty much how everything in the DRC runs) the staff of five provides fifty beds and fifty long shots. The staff caters to the street children of their locale, offering food, a bed, rudimentary education and, most importantly, a chance to go home. This is where we found Luzizila, a 13 year old boy.

    He had been living on the streets for two years when the center found him, and had been living at CMM for a few months when we arrived. He had been thrown out of his home by his parents after they accused him of being a witch. Like all his cohorts, Luzizila was mal-nourished and had stomach aliments from eating poor quality food. Thoroughly acclimated to the streets by this time, he was still young enough to warrant CMM's gambling on the possibility of his re-entry into society and family. Once a street child reaches the age of sixteen, by all accounts they are lost to the street.

    Due to the rigors of life on the streets, the older children are physically similar to American children five to six years younger. Though he was thirteen, if you saw Luzizila in your local shopping mall you would very likely guess him to be about eight. He does have a distinguishing feature to his benefit - he's cuddly cute to look at. Luzizila is a born poster boy for every NGO's donation brochure.

    The children at the center, under the head of Father Bakwem, have a fixed daily schedule. All must attend class, all must perform chores, all must re-learn the habit of self-discipline they had lost in their time on the streets. The center, with a staff of five, is desperately trying to re-create one hundred missing parents. It's a long shot at best.

    In addition to taking care of the children, the center also attempts to locate the actual parents - not an easy thing to do in a war torn nation. For Luzizila, it was not that difficult. He had not wandered far from his parent's house - in fact, he lived in the same area as they. Once a child's parents are located, the school invites them to classes where they try to convince them their belief in their children being witches is irrational and cruel. If it isn't enough to make the parents agree to take the child home, they also offer to pay for the child's schooling for one year.

    Should the parents accept the child to return, the school will continue to monitor the home for one year to check up on the child. What happens after that is anyone's guess. There were no records of "success" rates, no idea on how many of these children wind up back on the streets. CMM's work is a mixture of much effort, earnest prayer, and blind hope.

    Luzizila's parents agreed to take him back.

    On the day Luzizila was to be re-integrated with his parents, he looked decidedly less than happy. The past two years had undoubtedly been a horror for the child, the Jesuit center no doubt seemed to him an oasis. Now he was to leave, and return to the very source of his troubles - home. His father was not there to greet him, his mother looked uneasy and ashamed. She seemed none to happy about having another mouth to feed again. According to Nadine Giese, who works at another such center for children, the parents "often use sorcery as a pretext to get rid of them".

    Where Luzizila will be in a year - or where he is right now - is in microcosm the plight of the DRC. Cruelty, arbitrary rule, and irrationality are in abundance. Even should he be permitted to stay home this time, what chance for a future does he have in such a nation?