Human rights activists have uncovered gross abuses and molestation by some self-proclaimed pastors in Ghana who engage in torture against children they have accused of possessing witchcraft.
The children aged between five and eleven were said to have been sent to these pastors’ churches known as prayer camps by their parents for spiritual healing. It is said in some cases; the children with real or perceived mental health conditions are taken there against their will, based on widespread beliefs by their parents that mental health problems are a result of evil spirits or jealousy.
Some activists who had a firsthand experience on the ordeal of the teens at the prayer camps said some of the teens were chained to trees while others too were tied with heavy ropes and left under bizarre scorching sun in order to heal them of their perceived spiritual sickness. And the pastors boldly told activists during their visit to some of the churches that the children possessed evil spirits that must be exorcised that way.
“We visited eight prayer camps and saw similar scenes of people being “treated” for a mental disability detained in Ghana’s many unregulated prayer camps. We spoke with a 10-year-old girl who was chained 24 hours a day by her legs to a tree in an open-air compound. She appeared to be malnourished and had a serious skin condition that affected her whole body but had received no medication to treat this condition. Her parents apparently relinquished her to the camp’s care, where she remained unattended for extended periods of time”.
“We met an 18-year-old woman staring blankly off into space, repeating whatever she was asked. She was dressed in a green gingham school uniform. According to the prophet, “She was a schoolgirl doing well when the devil struck.” She was brought to the camp by her parents after she started wandering around aimlessly and not sleeping”.
“In another camp, we met a man with an alleged psychosocial disability who was almost naked, with only a dirty mosquito net wrapped around his private parts. He told us he had been shackled to the same tree for five years and forced to fast for days at a time. He had received neither a diagnosis nor any treatment”, activists wrote on the Huffington Post.
Activists also said the children are deprived of food and water and that their condition can be compared to that of animals. However, it is said the United Nations (UN) expert on torture went to Ghana in November 2013 to look at similar abuses by churches against children and women but the recommendations made have not been implemented by the Ghanaian government.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child-the UN expert body monitoring how governments implement the treaty on children’s rights, has made a fresh appeal to the Ghanaian government upon this new revelation to prohibit the admission and treatment of children with disabilities in prayer camps. It is also urging the Ghanaian government to investigate and prosecute anyone responsible for inhumane treatment of these children.
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