Torture of child witches in Africa
UNICEF (a secular charity by the way) has published a report about accusations of witchcraft against children in Africa. Some passages from
the article:
A wide spectrum of children are at risk, including orphans, street-children, albinos, those with physical disabilities or abnormalities such as autism, those with aggressive or solitary temperaments, children who are unusually gifted; those who were born prematurely or in unusual positions, and twins.
....
Most of the accused are boys and most aged 8-14.
....
Accused children end up being attacked, burned, beaten, and sometimes killed, according to the researchers. Exorcisms can include forcing children to fast; pouring petrol into children’s eyes or ears, beatings and being forced to swallow various substances. Many confessions are extracted under duress or violence, says the report.
....
Rather than legislation to protect children, in Cameroon, CAR, Chad and **on practicing witchcraft is outlawed, leading, in CAR’s case, to a large number of child witchcraft cases being brought to the family courts. Many of the children end up in prison.
This is the harm of religion. This is what religious people keep asking for, concrete examples of how religion hurts. Well, here it is. This is what happens when people believe in magic, spirits, and other supernatural bullsdun for which there is no evidence. As long as people continue to do stuff like this because of unproven and ridiculous supernatural beliefs, I'm going to continue to call them stupid, who the planet would be better off without. And I'm going to continue to insult the childish beliefs which they hold, as they continue to lead to this sort of crap. And if they don't like it, or want some civility from me, they should stop acting like retarded thugs.
And meanwhile, the vast majority of people in the 'civilised world' don't even have the common sense to stand up and tell these people that there are no such things as witches, witchcraft, black magic, etc. They're too dumb.
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." - Exodus 22:18
