Last year (2008) filmmakers Mags Gavan and Joost van der Valk followed Gary Foxcroft, a British NGO, on his mission to stop children being branded as witches and wizards in the Niger Delta. Gary has been supporting the CRARN children's camp (CRARN: Child's Right and Rehabilitation Network). The camp saves children that have been tortured and abandoned because they are believed to be witches and wizards. Mags and Joost return a year later to see what has changed.
Mags writes:
It is over a year ago now that we came across a small child covered in dirt and oil that we now know to be Mary. This is the story of how we came to meet Mary and how her life has changed since we rescued her.
In January 2008, Joost and I followed the British NGO director Gary Foxcroft on one of his many visits to CRARN.
Four days into our trip, Gary and his co-worker Lucky checked on some abandoned children accused of being wizards. Gary and Lucky had built a small shelter in Ibaka for the children to sleep in.
Ibaka
Ibaka is a small port in Akwa Ibom state. The main industry in the area is fishing but the local people claimed the oil industry had polluted their fish and that they now had to buy from the big fishing trawlers. The people were clearly struggling here and it was easy to understand why so many people were looking to churches and preachers to give them answers to their massive problems.
How the locals deal with the 'witches'
One man told us that the villagers drive out the witches from the villages or feed them poisonous berries to kill them.
As we walked around Ibaka we were approached by a man who wanted us to take his son with us, when we asked why he said it was because he was a witch. Ten minutes later another young boy asked if we could take his brother who he also believed to be a witch. Within half an hour we had been offered five children.
Mary
We continued walking by the sea when a little head popped up from behind a wall. A few minutes later a little girl, aged about four years old, began to follow us. She was covered in dirt and wearing oil-stained clothes. People were cursing her and calling her a witch.
Gary took the little girl, who told us her name was Mary, to the shelter where the other accused children lived.
Mary was terrified. She told Gary and Lucky that she had been living off scraps of yam she found on the market floor.
She had come from a nearby village called Bakassi and that after her mother had died she was cast out for being a witch. She had been living on the streets for a long time and she herself believed she was a witch.
Gary took her back to her village to see if anyone would accept her back.
Outcast
When we arrived in her local village of Bakassi, no one admitted they knew her. Eventually a woman came forward and pointed out a house where she claimed lived Mary's uncle. He too initially denied knowing Mary but eventually changed his mind.
Although others then came forward to admit they knew Mary, no one wanted to take her in. We were told to take her away because they believed Mary would poison them with witchcraft.
At this point in time there was no protection for children: there was no Children's Rights Act in place so there was nothing that Stepping Stones Nigeria could do in terms of prosecution.
Looking after Mary
Gary and Lucky decided to take her to CRARN. Young girls are particularly vulnerable to traffickers and if Mary had been left she could have ended up in a brothel or being sold on as a slave.
We cleaned her up and bought her food, water and a second hand dress. I will never forget her face when we gave her that pink dress which cost about 50p: it was the first smile we had seen since we had met her.
On the journey back to CRARN, Mary began chatting. We were amazed that she could speak English.
We arrived at CRARN at dusk and Mary woke up all bleary eyed and disorientated. Her main concern was not to leave any food behind: she grabbed everything she could from the car. We introduced her to some of the other children and gave her a big white fluffy toy rabbit.
Safe at CRARN
The next day we returned to visit her. She had a bowl of rice and beans and held her fluffy rabbit in the other hand.
Sam Itauma, the director of CRARN, spends a lot of time with new children so they feel at home. He also needs to take time explaining to them that they are not witches.
A week later, she was already beginning to fit in and make friends. Gary brought in a psychiatrist to talk to Mary to find out what kind of horrors she had experienced in Ibaka. Mary told him that she had been thrown out by her father because he believed she was a witch. She told him that people used to throw dirt in her face and kick her.
Mary is typical of many children accused of being a witch: her mother had died, most probably of poverty and the father had blamed the child for the mother's death.
One year on
A year later, after the first film had been broadcast, we returned to CRARN to visit Mary and see how she was getting on. She recognised us immediately and looked healthy and happy. She showed us her schoolbooks and was particularly excited about her new school uniform. When we had left her a year ago she was quite aggressive to other children (a defence mechanism she had learned on the streets), but now she was a peaceful and generally happy child.
Mary today
Mary is now one of the best students in her class. She'll soon be moving into a new sleeping block that has been built for the girls. With money raised by the film she will soon be able to have a brand new bed and clothes and a bag to keep all her school books in. The centre will also have a new school block and huge assembly hall where they will be able to play and read during the day.
Mary's progress has been incredible. Since we first found her and now that the Governor of Akwa Ibom has made it illegal to brand children as witches. He has granted free schooling to all children. This means that Mary will be able to attend a local school without any harassment.
Since the Governor visited CRARN and spoke out against stigmatising children, the local area of Eket has seen a lot of changes. Many of the older children are in local schools, some children have been reunited with their parents and local chiefs have taken a stand against churches branding children in their local churches.
Mary has also become a bit of a local celebrity with the workers at the Exxon Mobil plant in Eket. Every few weeks the British and Nigerian oil workers that are confined to their hotels invite some of the children down to dinner and go out of their way to treat them to a big dinner. It has become an event that the children really look forward to.
In December (2009) the oil workers have arranged for Father Christmas to make a surprise appearance, which will no doubt be the first proper Christmas they have had for a long time. Mary told us all about her new oil worker friends with her big beaming smiling face.
Her future is looking a lot better.
