sheesh. Bad reporting and propaganda.

AnnAlthouse links to a WAPO article about a child with kwashiorkor who was abandoned by the family because he was accused of being a "witch". There has been a couple similar stories in the papers about children being accused of witch craft, and even being killed in exorcisms.

the story claims "thousands" of such children, but I wonder if the kids are being abandoned because they are "witches", or if the moms (maybe from pressure of not having enough food, or maybe because the new "husband" doesn't wan the kid)  just find that a convenient way to discard the unwanted kid.

(before you point fingers, remember the moms carried the kid to term and breastfed them for two years. In the US they abort inconvenient kids)

The article says the kids are abandoned due to witchcraft... but doesn't give any other information. 

Background: when I worked in Africa, unexpected deaths/illnesses often were blamed on witches. The "witchdoctor" usually would find you had sinned or mistreated someone, and were being punished so you held a ceremony to cure you. Witchdoctors diagnose being bewitched, but like all parctitioners, a few turned to the dark side to show their power. 

...One other thing: When HIV started killing people, and western medicine didn't work, a lot of people went back to traditional ways to heal, and gave these evil shamans an opportunity to expand their power...Hence the reports of raped virgins to cure HIV or that albinos were being killed for body parts.

These accusations of witchcraft might be behind some of these children being abandoned, but we have no proof in the article if this accusation caused a dozen abandoned kids or if the thousands of abandoned street kids are due to this. 

But it ironic that the article resulted in lots of comments that blame Christians for this, and/or have the implication that Africans are savages for abandoning kids this way. Uh, racism anyone? One wonders why no one blames Buddhism for the street kids of Thailand or Hinduism for the street kids of India. Here in the Philippines, the blame is on the Catholic church for not allowing these kids to be aborted. But often it is the temples/churches and other local religious outreaches that rescue these kids...


And, of course, the rescuer is a white lady from Europe. Ha. I laughed. What a nice photo op...

What, no locals working with street kids? UNICEF could probably fund five locals to rescue and care for kids for the cost of funding this one "blond" European lady (and probably does, but they won't get their photos in the WAPost).

Yes, I worked in Africa, but there were not enough doctors back then, but even 40 years ago, most of the village outreaches were done by locals...we trained village health workers to do this, with a grant from Oxfam...