Witchcraft Accusations Against Children In Africa
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Witchcraft Accusations Against Children In Africa
Witchcraft accusations against children in Africa have received increasing international attention in the first decade of the 21st century. The phenomenon of witch-hunts in Sub-Saharan Africa is ancient, but the problem is reportedly "on the rise", due to charismatic preachers such as Helen Ukpabio, as well as "urbanization, poverty, conflict and fragmenting communities". Practice Recent reports by UNICEF, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Save the Children and Human Rights Watch have also highlighted the violence and abuse towards children accused of witchcraft in Africa. Accusations of witchcraft in Africa are a very serious matter as the witch is culturally understood to be the epitome of evil and the cause of all misfortune, disease and death. Consequently, the witch is the most hated person in African society and subjected to punishment, torture and even death. The victims of witchcraft accusations in African societies have usually been the elderly, the disabled ...
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Witch-hunt
A witch-hunt, or a witch purge, is a search for people who have been labeled witches or a search for evidence of witchcraft. The Witch trials in the early modern period, classical period of witch-hunts in Early Modern Europe and European Colonization of the Americas, Colonial America took place in the Early Modern period or about 1450 to 1750, spanning the upheavals of the Protestant Reformation, Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, resulting in an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 executions. The last executions of people convicted as witches in Europe took place in the 18th century. In other regions, like Africa and Asia, contemporary witch-hunts have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa and Papua New Guinea, and official legislation against witchcraft is still found in Saudi Arabia and Cameroon today. In current language, "witch-hunt" metaphorically means an investigation that is usually conducted with much publicity, supposedly to uncover subversive activity, disloyalty, a ...
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Leo Igwe
Leo Igwe (born 26 July 1970) is a Nigerian human rights advocate and humanist. Igwe is a former Western and Southern African representative of the International Humanist and Ethical Union, and has specialized in campaigning against and documenting the impacts of child witchcraft accusations. He holds a Ph.D from the Bayreuth International School of African Studies at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, having earned a graduate degree in philosophy from the University of Calabar in Nigeria. Igwe's human rights advocacy has brought him into conflict with high-profile witchcraft believers, such as Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries, because of his criticism of what he describes as their role in the violence and child abandonment that sometimes result from accusations of witchcraft. Igwe was appointed as a research fellow of the James Randi Educational Foundation, where he continues working toward the goal of responding to what he sees as the deleterious effects of superstiti ...
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Safe Child Africa
A safe (also called a strongbox or coffer) is a secure lockable box used for securing valuable objects against theft or fire. A safe is usually a hollow cuboid or cylinder, with one face being removable or hinged to form a door. The body and door may be cast from metal (such as steel) or formed out of plastic through blow molding. Bank teller safes typically are secured to the counter, have a slit opening for dropping valuables into the safe without opening it, and a time-delay combination lock to foil thieves. One significant distinction between types of safes is whether the safe is secured to a wall or structure or if it can be moved around. A less secure version (only suitable for petty cash) is usually called a cash-box. History The first known safe dates back to the 13th century BC and was found in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramesses II. It was made of wood and consisted of a locking system resembling the modern pin tumbler lock. In the 16th century, blacksmiths in southern ...
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Ethiopia
Ethiopia, , om, Itiyoophiyaa, so, Itoobiya, ti, ኢትዮጵያ, Ítiyop'iya, aa, Itiyoppiya officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country in the Horn of Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the east and northeast, Kenya to the south, South Sudan to the west, and Sudan to the northwest. Ethiopia has a total area of . As of 2022, it is home to around 113.5 million inhabitants, making it the 13th-most populous country in the world and the 2nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates. Anatomically modern humans emerged from modern-day Ethiopia and set out to the Near East and elsewhere in the Middle Paleolithic period. Southwestern Ethiopia has been proposed as a possible homeland of the Afroasiatic langua ...
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Hamar People
Hamar people (also spelled Hamer) are a community inhabiting southwestern Ethiopia. They live in Hamer woreda (or district), a fertile part of the Omo River valley, in the Debub Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples Region (SNNPR). They are largely pastoralists, so their culture places a high value on cattle. Demographics The 2003 national census reported 46,532 people in this ethnic group, of whom 10,000 were urban inhabitants. The vast majority (99.13%) live in the SNNPR.2007 Ethiopian census, first draft
, Ethiopian Central Statistical Agency (accessed 6 May 2009)
According to the Ethiopian national census of 1994, there were 42,838 Hamer language speakers, and 42,448 self-identified Hamer people, representing approximately 0.1% of the total Ethiopian population.


Cultur ...
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Karo People (Ethiopia)
Karo (also Cherre, Kere, Kerre) is a South Omotic language spoken in the Debub (South) Omo Zone of the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and People's Region in Ethiopia. Karo is described as being closely related to its neighbor, Hamer-Banna, with a lexical similarity of 81%, and is considered a dialect of Hamer by Blench (2006), but as a separate language belonging to the ''Hamer-Karo'' subfamily in Glottolog. The Karo people, who live close to the lower Omo River The Omo River (also called Omo-Bottego) in southern Ethiopia is the largest Ethiopian river outside the Nile, Nile Basin. Its course is entirely contained within the boundaries of Ethiopia, and it empties into Lake Turkana on the border with Keny ..., use colorful bodywork, complex headdresses and body scars to express beauty and importance within the community. 2,400 speakers are using the Karo language. Basic vocabulary In percentages of basic vocabulary scored by 14 Omotic languages against 13 others, Karo ...
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Omotic Languages
The Omotic languages are a group of languages spoken in southwestern Ethiopia, in the Omo River region. The Ge'ez script is used to write some of the Omotic languages, the Latin script for some others. They are fairly agglutinative and have complex tonal systems (for example, the Bench language). The languages have around 6.2 million speakers. The group is generally classified as belonging to the Afroasiatic language family, but this is disputed by some. Four separate "Omotic" groups are accepted by ''Glottolog'' 4.0 and Güldemann (2018): Ta-Ne-Omotic, Dizoid (Maji), Mao, and Aroid ("South Omotic"). Languages The North and South Omotic branches ("Nomotic" and "Somotic") are universally recognized, with some dispute as to the composition of North Omotic. The primary debate is over the placement of the Mao languages. Bender (2000) classifies Omotic languages as follows: *South Omotic / Aroid ( Hamer-Banna, Aari, Dime, Karo) *North Omotic / Non-Aroid ** Mao *** Bambassi * ...
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Mingi
Mingi is the traditional belief among the Omotic-speaking Karo and Hamar peoples of southern Ethiopia that children with perceived and true physical abnormalities are ritually impure. An example of perceived abnormalities include the top teeth erupting before bottom teeth. Children born out of wedlock are also considered impure and therefore capable of bringing curses upon the people. The fear of curses or bad luck for the tribe leads to the killing of many children. These children are disposed of either through drowning, putting soil in their mouths and strangling or leaving infants in the forest. The elders make the decision to brand a child mingi but the deaths are carried out by various members of the tribe. The Karo tribe officially banned the practice of mingi in July 2012, but it remains an active part of the belief system in others. It is believed as many as 686,000 individuals secretly practice it in other Omotic communities. They are believed to exert an evil influence u ...
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The Augusta Chronicle
''The Augusta Chronicle'' is the daily newspaper of Augusta, Georgia, and is one of the oldest newspapers in the United States still in publication. The paper is known for its coverage of the Masters Tournament, which is played in Augusta. The ''Chronicle'' had a daily circulation of 18,177 and a Sunday circulation of 21,166 according to Dec 2018 Quarterly Data Report by the Alliance for Audited Media. History The paper was founded as the weekly ''Augusta Gazette'' in 1785. In 1786, the paper was renamed ''The Georgia State Gazette''. From 1789 to 1804, the paper was known as ''The Augusta Chronicle and Gazette of the State''. Patrick Walsh, later a U.S. Senator, joined the editorial staff in 1866 and became owner in 1873. In 1945, former bookkeeper William Morris, Jr. bought controlling interest in the paper. This was the beginning of Morris Communications, headquartered in Augusta with the ''Chronicle'' as flagship. In addition to a daily online edition, the entire archives ...
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Democratic Republic Of The Congo
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in Central Africa. It is bordered to the northwest by the Republic of the Congo, to the north by the Central African Republic, to the northeast by South Sudan, to the east by Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, and by Tanzania (across Lake Tanganyika), to the south and southeast by Zambia, to the southwest by Angola, and to the west by the South Atlantic Ocean and the Cabinda exclave of Angola. By area, it is the second-largest country in Africa and the 11th-largest in the world. With a population of around 108 million, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is the most populous officially Francophone country in the world. The national capital and largest city is Kinshasa, which is also the nation's economic center. Centered on the Cong ...
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List Of Ebola Outbreaks
This list of Ebola outbreaks records the known occurrences of Ebola virus disease, a highly infectious and acutely lethal viral disease that has afflicted humans and animals primarily in equatorial Africa. The pathogens responsible for the disease are the five ebolaviruses recognized by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses: Ebola virus (EBOV), Sudan virus (SUDV), Reston virus (RESTV), Taï Forest virus (TAFV), and Bundibugyo virus (BDBV). Four of the five variants have caused the disease in humans as well as other animals; RESTV has caused clinical symptoms only in non-human primates. RESTV has caused subclinical infections in humans, producing an antibody response but no visual symptoms or disease state manifestations. Transmission of the ''ebolaviruses'' between natural reservoirs and humans is rare, and outbreaks of Ebola virus disease are often traceable to a single case where an individual has handled the carcass of a gorilla, chimpanzee, bats, or duiker. ...
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Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierra Leone has a tropical climate, with diverse environments ranging from savanna to rainforests. The country has a population of 7,092,113 as of the 2015 census. The capital and largest city is Freetown. The country is divided into five administrative regions, which are subdivided into Districts of Sierra Leone, 16 districts. Sierra Leone is a constitutional republic with a unicameral parliament and a directly elected executive president, president serving a five-year term with a maximum of two terms. The current president is Julius Maada Bio. Sierra Leone is a Secular state, secular nation with Constitution of Sierra Leone, the constitution providing for the separation of state and religion and freedom of conscience (which includes freedom of ...
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