Three years after taking in 2-year-old Inimffon Uwamobong and her younger brother, Sister Matylda Iyang finally heard from the mother who had abandoned them.
“Their mother came back and told me that she (Inimffon) and her younger sibling are witches, asking me to throw them out of the convent,” said Sister Iyang, who oversees the Mother Charles Walker Children Home at the Handmaids of the Holy Child Jesus convent.
Such an accusation is not new to Sister Iyang. Since opening the home in 2007, Sister Iyang has cared for dozens of malnourished and homeless children from the streets of Uyo; many of them had family who believed they were witches.
The Uwamobong siblings became well and were able to enroll in school, but Sister Iyang and other social service providers are faced with others in the same position.
Health care and social workers say parents, guardians and religious leaders brand children as witches for different reasons. Children subject to such accusations are often abused, abandoned, trafficked or even murdered, according to UNICEF and Human Rights Watch.
