Citation

Ally Yaseen, Yew-Siong Lauren. Child Abuse Res. South Afr. 2020; 21(2): 51-60.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2020, South African Professional Society on the Abuse of Children)

DOI

10.10520/ejc-carsa-v21-n2-a5

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Child abuse is a world-wide phenomenon that has in recent years received much attention While research and advocacy surrounding child abuse has gained momentum, it can also be expressed in unique ways, such as African children accused of witchcraft. Most research on children accused of witchcraft in however, appears in unpublished literature and as such, the expression and understanding thereof is limited. Belief in supernatural entities, like witches and witchcraft exist in many religious and cultural systems and are believed to be the agents of misfortune. Generally, a person accused of witchcraft is likely to experience physical and psychological harm, with historic and contemporary evidence supporting this. This study aims to describe children accused of witchcraft, through an analysis of secondary data. The overall was to examine news reports, advocacy agencies and various commentaries on children accused of witchcraft toward providing firstly, a description of an expression of child abuse in Africa, which seems to be underreported; and secondly, the representation of religio-cultural beliefs in ways that justify the abuse of children. Data took the form of news reports, as well as information from web pages and advocacy agencies. A content analysis of secondary data was undertaken, and three themes identified are discussed namely, 1) protagonists of violence; 2) consequences of witchcraft accusations and 3) religio-cultural beliefs and justification of accusation. This research contributes to understanding an expression of child abuse, as well as indicates how religio-cultural beliefs may be represented in a way that is used as a justification to violence.

Language: en