OVER THE past decade, witchcraft accusations have increasingly targeted women and children. The link between children and mischievous spirits who can wreak havoc in a home is not new in Africa.
Children suffering from sickle cell anaemia are being regarded as evil persons who must undergo reincarnation. Those with disabilities or deformities are also considered as evil possessed children who bring hardship, poverty, illness and pain to a family due to their unusual appearance, aberrant behavior, disability, chronic illness and weakness.
To some traditionalists and pastors, allowing such children to live, are a threat to the home and will cause hardship, financial instability and even death.
Francis Nkrumah, a 40-year old driver who hails from Gomoa Abonkom in the Central Region of Ghana, confessed of nearly killing his two-year-old daughter because the family believed the child was an evil child who had reincarnated.
His wife, Georgina, gave birth to a bouncy baby girl in 2015.
Like any ordinary child, Nkrumah expected that Abena could walk and possibly start school after a year.
However, after two years, Abena could not sit, crawl and make gestures like other children.
“Her head was becoming bigger by the day so we initially took her to the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital where she was examined and some fluid extracted from her head. While undergoing treatment, my mother In-law visited us and suggested that we seek other alternatives, but I opposed,” he said.
However, Francis returned from work one day and discovered that Gina and her mother had taken the child to a spiritualist. They took Abena to a fetish priestess around Winneba in the Central Region.
“I was at work the following day when my wife called me on phone to inform me that the fetish priestess they visited had requested my presence at her shrine.
“According to Gina, the priestess said without my blessings, the ritual cannot be carried out.”
Francis said it was at the shrine that he was told that his daughter was a ‘changeling’ that had reincarnated and that, if she is not sent back to where she came from, hardship and suffering will befall the family.
Francis continued, “While growing up, I had heard stories of such evil children but never believed it until it happened to me. I had to create an excuse for the family to leave her presence,” he said.
Francis later reported his wife and in-law to the Nima Police for attempted murder.
Francis’ daughter is currently seven years old and is doing well even though she is yet to walk.
Many African children have fallen victim to such emotional, physical abuse and murder as a result of these accusations.
In March and April this year, two reported cases of disabled children, one killed and another nearly killed, were reported.
The first case which occurred on March 27, 2022, involved a two-year-old boy with autism who was buried alive by his grandfather at Dutch Komenda in the Central Region.
Due to the boy’s condition, his 70-year-old grandfather considered him an evil child and buried him at the shores of the coastal town.
But, for the timely intervention of the police, he would have died.
The police team, led by the District Police Commander in Elmina, Supt. Abraham Bansah, rescued the victim and arrested suspect Kwaku Baah, the grandfather.
The suspect, during police interrogation, said a spiritualist, who operated at a village close to Abura Gyabankrom, directed him to bury the child alive since he was an ‘evil child’ and needed to be sent back to where he came from.
Parents of the victim, who conspired with the old man to bury the child alive, were later arrested by the police. They are all facing trial at a Cape Coast Court.
The second case which occurred on April 21, 2022 led to the arrest of the mother of a two-year-old girl who allegedly connived with a 72-year-old traditional priestess to bury her two-year-old baby girl at Abura Gyabankrom.
According to the Public Relations Officer of the Central Regional Police Command, Superintendent Irene Serwaah Oppong, Mary Essuman, aged 36, mother of the child, connived with Esi Janet, a fetish priestess, to bury the victim.
She said two men, who witnessed the act, reported the women to the police, leading to their arrest.
She said police investigations revealed that the priestess was the one who buried the baby after taking her through what she termed ‘spiritual healing’.
“During investigation, it came to light that it was the victim’s mother who authorised the spiritual healing that led to her death. Even though they claimed the victim died two days before she was buried, the police are yet to carry out an autopsy to ascertain the cause of death,” she added.
Serwaa Quaynor, Founder and Director of the Autism Awareness Care and Training Centre, has called on the government to put in measures to prevent members of the Ghanaian society from committing atrocities against children with autism and other disabilities.
“These children do not have a voice and someone has to be responsible for them and speak for them.
Mrs. Quaynor, who is also mother of a 39-year-old woman living with autism, said some parents with such children even give concoctions to these children and poison them slowly to death.
The Director in charge of the Public Affairs Directorate of the Ghana Police Service, Chief Superintendent Grace Ansah Akrofi, says practices and beliefs that lead to the death of a human being are considered a crime punishable by law.
“The Police do not believe in witchcraft cases and other believes, so far as a crime has been committed, we arrest the perpetrator and take such a person to court and since these acts involve the loss of lives, the perpetrator must be arrested and dealt with according to the law,” she said. “Ignorance of the law, they say, is not an excuse and as such, once a crime has been committed, the Police will investigate. If there are perpetrators, they must face the law,” she added
The Government of Ghana has taken many initiatives to guard against abuses of all citizens, including disabled children.
Apart from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which was adopted by Ghana in 1948, Ghana, in 1990, signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) which was also adopted in November 1989 as the first legally-binding international instrument incorporating the human rights of children.
The rights enshrined in CRC include the rights to survival, health, protection, education and full participation in family, cultural and social life.
The National Disability Act 715 was enacted in 2006 to safeguard the rights of its citizens with disabilities. Article 4 (1) of the Persons with Disability Act states, that, “A person shall not discriminate against, exploit or subject a person with disability to abusive or degrading treatment” (Republic of Ghana 2006). Articles 28 and 29 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, state that children and disabled people are neither to be subjected to discrimination nor denied their rights as citizens of the country.
So, both children and adults with disabilities should be accorded their full rights to existence and protection by their parents and guardians, and family members like every normal person. The killing of such innocent souls, who, through no fault of theirs have been hit by such physical disasters, by anyone in any part of Ghana and beyond, is tantamount to crime and punishable by law. The Good Books caps it this way “Thou shall not kill”. Let us protect their vulnerable souls and be kind to them, for God, to also bless us.
BY Linda Tenyah-Ayettey