Case file · Witch trials
Kinshasa's 'child witches'
In the 1990s and 2000s thousands of children in Kinshasa were accused of witchcraft (kindoki) by relatives, subjected to violent 'deliverance' in revival churches and driven onto the streets; a 2010 UNICEF report documented the crisis.
2010 CE · -4.32, 15.31 · status: official
The account
Many of the city's street children, called shegué, had been thrown out after being blamed for deaths, illness or poverty in the family. Some prophets charged fees to exorcise children with fasting, beatings or worse. The DRC's 2009 child-protection law made such accusations a crime.
The sceptical view
Researchers tie the accusations to war, poverty and the collapse of extended families, not to any power of the children.
Connections in the atlas
- Children accused of witchcraft in northern Angola
- Witchcraft on trial in the Central African Republic