Oscar-nominated actor Sophie Okonedo is to narrate a hard-hitting Dispatches programme for Channel 4 about children in Nigeria who are tortured for being witches.

 

Channel 4 hopes the film, Saving Africa's Witch Children, will have as much impact as last year's Dispatches documentary, China's Stolen Children.

 

The new programme, which is due to air on Wednesday November 12, will look at the phenomenon of children who are blamed for catastrophes, death and famine and branded witches in some of the poorest parts of Nigeria.

 

Saving Africa's Witch Children follows Briton Gary Foxcroft, who has devoted his life to raising money to help the children and who works with Nigerian Sam Itauma, who runs a shelter for children accused of witchcraft.

 

The documentary will feature shocking stories of torture inflicted on children, including a 13-year-old who was tied up with chicken wire and starved and beaten for two weeks, and a 14-year-old girl who was burned with acid before her mother attempted to bury her alive.

 

One 17-year-old was left brain-damaged after having a three-inch nail driven into her skull.

 

The film will feature interviews with preachers from the churches that brand children witches or wizards and charge their parents to "exorcise" the spirits.

 

One preacher, who calls himself "The Bishop", told the programme that he had killed 110 people.

 

Cameras filmed him as he administered a mixture of pure alcohol, a substance known as "African mercury" and his own blood to one child accused of witchcraft.

 

The film, a Red Rebel Films and Southern Star Factual co-production, was produced and directed by Mags Gavan and Joost Van der Valk and executive produced by Alice Keens-Soper. It was ordered by the Channel 4 commissioning editor for religion, Aaqil Ahmed.

 

Okonedo, who was nominated for an Oscar for the movie Hotel Rwanda, has a Nigerian father.

 

MediaGuardian

How shocking is that? :mellow: I knew Nigeria were a bit f***ed up with their kidnapping stuff and all that, but I never knew this went on. :o

In Africa you have this dangerous mixture of the absolute worst elements of Christianity, Islam and Old Tribal customs, which just seems to cause this sort of horror on a regular basis....

 

Add to this the disgusting mutilation of girls' genetalia, called "circumcision", which is basically just torture by a different name.... And now, on TV, I've just heard about a young girl hacked to death in Tanzania for being an "albino", oh, and let's not forget the South African political leader Jacob Zuma (another "god-fearing" man.. :rolleyes: ) who had sex with a young, HIV-infected girl and honestly believed that he could avoid catching the disease by washing his dick in "Holy Water"

 

Christ, this is just totally FUKKED UP!!!!! And it is all 100% the fault of some "faith" or other..... <_< <_<

this is quite shocking tbh....

this is quite shocking tbh....

 

It is man... At the end of the day, it's all about controlling people through fear and manipulation... You notice that in a lot of cases it's a bunch of men practising their "rituals" and "exorcisms" on young, barely adolescent girls dont you....? I bet these evil c/unts get off on it as well... Fukkin' DISGUSTING, amoral, mysoginistic cr@p, it's child abuse simple as.... This is something which really shames Africa...

 

I cant for the life of me understand how anyone can justify this on some kind of "cultural" level.... Bollocks is... I guess that means if Ian Brady had worn a dog-collar and called himself an "exorcist" then that would be perfectly okay in the eyes of some fukked-up individuals out there..... -_-

Wow, I'm really shocked by the that. I guess I was naive to think such things didn't happen anymore.