Do you remember the wizard baby who was left by his family? Wait till you see him. Two decades later, cases of child abandonment are becoming rampant in Nigeria. The traditional and social media have reported many such cases cases that is gradually becoming a normal occurrence. Even as incidents of child abandonment cut across the country, there are different facets to the challenge.
There are children branded as witches by their parents and abandoned to die. Sometimes these children are even inflicted with serious physical scars under the guise of exorcism before they’re abandoned. There are also the cases of babies abandoned shortly after they were born. That this phenomenon is still occurring in the 21st century Nigeria is a sad commentary on our national policy. While some of these babies are abandoned in the hospital, some are dropped off at all sorts of unconventional places such as public toilets, dump sites, Bush and drainage systems, among others.
Sometimes some of these babies get lucky and are rescued by members of the public before they die. Some are not lucky as they sometimes die before help can reach them. While it’s difficult to get the correct statistics concerning cases of abandoned babies in the country, the fact that there are occasional reports of dumped children from all over the country shows that the incident is rampant.
According to the Register of the Child Care Unit of the Oyo State Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Community Development and Social Welfare, a total of 114 cases of abandoned babies were recorded in Ilva Dan between 2009 and 2012. Also in October 2019, the Acting Secretary of the Federal Capital Territory Social Development Secretariat,
Mrs. Saphir Omar, decried the rate at which newborn babies are being dumped across the FCT, lamenting that the situation is becoming worrisome and disturbing 40 years ago. January 3, 2016, Danish aid worker Anja Ringin Lovin was photographed giving water to a severely emaciated two year old boy who she rescued after he was branded as a witch by his family and left to starve to death in aquaibam.
The child wandered the streets for months when Anja got a phone call and immediately led a rescue team, including her husband, David Emmanuel Umam, to bring the child to the Children’s Education and Development Foundation ACAEDF, also known as Land of Hope, named after the boy. I chose to call him Hope because right now we’re all hoping that he survives, Lovin wrote. Two days after she rescued the boy, he was in a village, naked, alone and almost dead.
Lovin shared a photo of herself giving water to Little Hope to raise awareness about the serious problem plaguing the country and to raise money for the boy’s ongoing medical needs. The photo went viral, and Hope’s story quickly spread throughout the world. Today, it’s exactly one year ago, the world came to know a young little boy called Hope Love and wrote in a Facebook post on January 30. This week, Hope will start school in an updated photo, a heftier Hope was wearing a red jumper, white Velcro sneakers and a black backpack, taking a sip of water from a bottle just like he did in the original.
The boy’s healthy appearance was a welcome surprise to those who heard his story a year ago. Glad to see Hope and all the other children growing up to be loved, well fed, happy, having fun, and going to school. One Facebook user wrote, the change is amazing, and he’s a wonderful little boy with so much character in him. Another commented, Hope lives with 35 other children in an orphanage run by Levin and her husband, David Emmanuel Umam, in Ecket, Nigeria, and his story is continuing to help dozens of other children just like him.
In 2009, CBS reported on the issue, an estimated 150 children were accused of witchcraft in two of Nigeria’s 36 States over the last ten years. Of those, 15,000, 1000 of them have been murdered. One child, they noted, was a nine year old boy whose family pastor had accused him of being a witch. His father, in an attempt to exercise him, tried to force acid down his throat, which ended up burning away his eyes and face. He died a month later.
It turns out pastors are often involved in accusing children of being witches, and 13 Nigerian churches have been accused of contributing to this growing problem. When a child is accused, they are oftentimes tortured or killed by the family members or the Church members who take the Bible verse, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live to a whole new level. Though rarely mentioned in case studies, these children often come from extremely poor families who may even be relieved to have one less mouth to feed. In Nigeria, poverty, poor education and violence serve as a foundation for these superstitions and communities. Look for scapegoats when things go poorly for a village or community.
Martin Dawes, a spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund, said the trigger is sometimes the death of a relative, the loss of a job or the denunciation of a pastor. And people look for a reason why these old school beliefs that someone must be blamed for negative change is rooted both in the lack of education and religion in which Christianity is blended with paganism. Organizations trying to help like Youcef.
The United Nations Children’s Fund and Levin’s Foundation usually begin their work in villages where Ministry and Dominion theology takes center stage. Pastors in these communities are generally corrupt and teach their followers that the problems they’re facing are caused by which children and their families hungry for cash, these pastors offer to deliver exorcisms to drive out the witch spirits that are keeping them from prosperity.
To go with AFP story in French by Susan Nanji children protest saying that they’re innocent on February 26, 2009 after being branded as witches in the Southern Nigeria city of Ekit Aqua IBM state, about a dozen of so called Christian religious leaders have been arrested, one on murder charges after confessing in a documentary film that he killed 110 children for being witches.
Uneducated parents generally choose the child with something different about them, either in appearance or temperament, and become convinced that they are the root of their problems, similar to the witch hunts that plagued the US. These children are then beaten, tortured or cast away until they confess. This was the case for Hope, who after he was beaten, was left for dead and abandoned entirely by his family.
Having witnessed this first hand, his savior Levin sold everything she had to set up her charity and has made her life’s work educating communities about the disinformation around rich kids and setting up homes for abandoned children to live and thrive. But thanks to the thousands of people from around the world who donated money to the ACAEDF on Hope’s behalf, Levin said she was able to help open a doctor’s clinic to help more accused children.
The organization also bought a piece of land called Land of Hope, which will be home to a new orphanage that protects other abandoned boys and girls. Hope is proof that these kids lives can be turned around. Love And Said as you can see, Hope is growing with speed and he is such a handsome, healthy and very happy young boy because of the tremendous love and care he receives every day from our staff and all of our children.
Love and said. Where there is love, there is Hope. Now, more than a year after the famous photo was taken, the 17 year old boy is unrecognizable. On Thursday, January 3, 2020, Anja posted new photos of Hope to Mark the anniversary. She described Hope as a very strong, intelligent, funny and beautiful boy who, despite all odds, survived and despite his young age, knows that hate is a great burden to bear.
Today is the 30 of January 2020 and today is exactly 17 years ago we rescued Hope. I think most people in the world has or seen or heard about the famous picture of Hope and I where I knelt down in front of his starving, malnourished body to give him water to share the picture today.
Instead, I want to share pictures of Hope, how he looks today, 14 years after the rescue, a very strong, intelligent, funny and beautiful young boy who, despite all odds, survived. Hope has seen the famous picture of him and I many times he will point to himself to say that it’s him on the picture and then he will smile as if he was proud. However, I know it is not about pride.