cross-posted at Talk To Action
A frightening story in yesterday's NYT profiles Helen Ukpabio, a Pentecostal evangelist from Nigeria who specializes in hunting down witches. She is one of several preachers in rural Nigeria whose teachings have resulted in children being horribly tortured and/or abandoned.
Their fellow villagers have often seen DVDs of "End of the Wicked," Ms. Ukpabio’s bloody 1999 movie purporting to show how the devil captures children’s souls. And some have read her book "Unveiling the Mysteries of Witchcraft," where she confidently writes that "if a child under the age of 2 screams in the night, cries and is always feverish with deteriorating health, he or she is a servant of Satan."
In what world is this not child abuse? Apparently not in the world of Glorious Praise Ministries in Houston, which recently invited this woman to preach at a service. When the NYT interviewed her, Ukpabio claimed that people are only ganging up on her because she's African. Oblivious, in denial, dangerous.
Ukpabio is one of several preachers profiled in "Saving Africa's Witch Children," a British documentary due to air on HBO2 on Wednesday. It details some of the horrific results of some of these evangelists' teachings in a country where belief in demonic possession is very strong.
Those disturbed by the needless immiseration of innocent children should beware. "Saving Africa’s Witch Children" follows Gary Foxcroft, founder of the charity Stepping Stones Nigeria, as he travels the rural state of Akwa Ibom, rescuing children abused during horrific "exorcisms" — splashed with acid, buried alive, dipped in fire — or abandoned roadside, cast out of their villages because some itinerant preacher called them possessed.
Ukpabio counters that Foxcroft's organization and the Children's Rights and Rehabilitation Network, a shelter and school that cares for abandoned children, are actually engaged in 419 fraud--with no evidence whatsoever to back up such an outrageous claim. Further, she's suing both charities and a Nigerian state that outlawed accusing children of witchcraft--and wants to permanently bar them from speaking out against her.
I look at this, and I wonder how in the world this woman isn't herself the target of a lawsuit, or isn't in prison somewhere. I've wondered how in the world African countries can even consider passing such horribly repressive laws against homosexuality. Now I know why--it's the same mentality that allows preachers to peddle the kind of garbage Ukpabio does more or less with impunity.