The reality of our actions with the REEJER - Testimony
Exaucée K. is a 15-year-old teenager, the fourth of seven siblings, who grew up in Moanda, a town located at 800 km from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Before the young teenager was accommodated by the N'dako Ya Biso ("Our House" in Lingala) centre of the Chemin Neuf Community, a member of our local partner, the REEJER, she faced the same unfortunate fate as many children and adolescents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Indeed, while she was peacefully living with her parents in a house in Moanda, she was one day suddenly accused of witchcraft by the pastor of the revivalist church she was attending with her mother. Consequently, the mother of the young woman abandoned her in the church, and tried to convince the pastor that she was not her biological daughter. The pastor then ‘unsuccessfully’ exorcised the child, and eventually concluded that she could not be cured and drove her out of the church. As a result, the young Exaucée had to take refuge in the streets. After living in precarious conditions for few days she decided to register as a refugee from Angola in order to travel to Kinshasa, where she hoped to find an aunt whose address she did not know. Once in Kinshasa, she unsurprisingly did not know where to go and was, once more, confronted to the violence of the streets of Kinshasa and the precariousness. In July 2018, the social service of the municipality of Limete brought her to the N'dako Ya Biso center, where all the necessary measures to allow her safe return home were undertaken. Séraphine E., a collaborator of the centre, went to Moanda with the girl in search of her parents. Exaucée's father was surprised and moved to see that his daughter was still alive, and he hugged her intensely when he saw her. As for Exaucée's mother, she had not returned home for some time. By the end of a mediation conducted by the member of the REEJER between the daughter and the father, it was mutually agreed that the girl would return home to live with her father. The reunification took place on the same day and Exaucée was enrolled in the 3rd year of secondary school.
Given the scale of the phenomenon, which is difficult to quantify accurately but estimated at several thousand by the French Office for the Protection of Refugees and Stateless Persons and up to 70% for street children in Kinshasa according to Human Rights Watch, as well as the serious consequences for the survival, integrity and dignity of children, the protection of so-called 'witch children' is one of the main areas of action of our international partnership with the REEJER. The causes of this phenomenon fall within the Congolese context of beliefs related to witchcraft, but are also influenced by a multitude of complex economic, political and social factors. The influence of revivalist churches on the persistence of the phenomenon is not negligible. Indeed, the attendance of these apocalyptic churches leads to a wait-and-see behaviour on the part of the population, who believe that all problems will be solved by God's will. Above all, this type of church, attended by Exaucée’s mother, plays an essential role in underscoring the figure of the sorcerer in the collective imagination of society. Those churches make the sorcerer omnipresent in society by demonizing him in their speeches. These churches also offer liberation therapies for a fee, as it was the case for Exaucée. However, despite potential "successes" of the therapy, most children accused of witchcraft cannot be reintegrated into their families, as those fear their own children.
Article 160(2) of the Law No. 09/001 of January 10, 2009 on the protection of children, provides for an imprisonment sentence ranging from one to three years and a monetary fine of two hundred thousand to one million Congolese francs, for any person accusing a child of witchcraft. However, all the implementing measures necessary for the application of this provision have still not been adopted, thus hindering the legal effect of the provision. The adoption of the necessary implementing measures by the Congolese government is one of the recommendations that the REEJER, accompanied by Apprentis d'Auteuil and Apprentis d’Auteuil International, will make to the Congolese State during the forthcoming pre-sessions of the Universal Periodic Review of the Democratic Republic of the Congo at the UN, in April 2019.