Misinformation harms the most vulnerable

Information on the street

Working in collaboration with Stop the Child Witchcraft Accusations (SCWA) partners, we have been analysing community feedback from trusted contacts in 12 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. Three key themes emerged:

• Misinformation about the causes of Covid-19 leads to confusion and failure to take action.

• Covid-19 restrictions have caused severe socio-economic harm to local communities’ and households’ that were already facing disadvantage.

• Fear created by the above uncertainty and insecurity is linked to increased witchcraft accusations and abuse of vulnerable children.

These themes highlight the need for communities to be able to accurately explain why life has got tougher since Covid-19, building on local conversations around reliable information.

Misinformation and confusion

Our contacts told us that there is a lot of speculation about Coronavirus in their countries and communities. Reasons given for the spread of the pandemic include Coronavirus being: ‘a punishment from God’, ‘a ruse from the devil’, ‘an outworking of biological warfare between Chinese and American superpowers’, ‘the result of 5G technology’ or ‘a highly infectious illness’. Some believe that Coronavirus doesn’t exist at all or that African people are safe from it because it cannot survive warmer climates. Blame is most frequently attributed to either the Chinese, the West or the wealthy with their international travel. Government authorities rely on media to communicate health messages to their populations. However, our partners reported that a lot of additional information is being shared on social media and that this information is frequently unreliable. This confusion causes fear and discourages people from taking action to protect themselves and their communities.

Socio-economic harm

Consistently we heard that the impact of lockdown restrictions is far more severe than the impact of the virus itself. As people have lost their livelihoods, many are starving. Food insecurity is mentioned again and again. The pandemic has done long term damage to economies and livelihoods in Sub-Saharan countries and this is putting families under significant extra pressure. We heard from Mrs G in Kananga, DR Congo:

 “My husband, who lost his job, abandoned me and our three children. I don’t know where he is. I am trying to get by now by selling leaves to meet the needs of my children. I feed the same kind of cassava leaves that I sell on their own [i.e. that is all she feeds them] to feed my children once a day. The huge anxiety that plays on my mind is that one of my children is already suffering from malnutrition. I don’t know what to do or when coronavirus is going to end.”

 Witchcraft Accusations

A rise in witchcraft accusations is noted in Nigeria, Kenya and DR Congo, and this increase often happens at times of crisis. Families are under pressure and they want explanations for their changing circumstances. Children with behavioural or physical differences to local norms become scapegoats, accused of witchcraft or of bringing a curse on their homes. They are often abandoned to live on the streets in major cities like Kinshasa. Food insecurity is particularly severe for vulnerable groups such as children living on the streets. The COVID-19 impact is compounded by lack of access to clean water and to facemasks to protect them from the virus.

Beyond confusion and fear

Many of these injustices could be avoided through local communities being equipped to develop and disseminate more accurate explanations for misfortune, and through feeling empowered to develop their own responses to the hardships.

Our partners’ feedback identifies churches and radio as highly trusted sources of information, which suggests that these are good routes to starting community conversations based on accurate information. Social dialogues are essential for identifying common local concerns, for building healthy understanding of them and for developing sustainable local responses to COVID-19 and lockdown restrictions.

Improving the lives of street living children

Day 14 of #16DaysofActivism

By Stephanie Mooney

Any form of abuse leaves scars. A few years ago I participated in some focus group meetings with street living children, aged from 6 years to 16 years, to explore starting a radio project for Feba UK for these children in Kinshasa, DR Congo. It was particularly difficult to get street living girls to participate but we where able to include a small group of teenage girls. I was deeply affected by a 16 year-old girl who showed me several scars on her body that she had suffered from being beaten and being raped. These were her outward scars but she also had deep psychological scars from her suffering that couldn’t be as easily seen.

Shockingly, this girl’s experiences are not uncommon; as there are approximately 25,000 children living on the streets of Kinshasa and the number is growing. Many of the children are on the streets because they have been accused of being witches and as a result, been thrown out of their homes and excluded from their communities. Any child living on the street is marginalised, but girls are particularly vulnerable and to survive, many are coerced into sex work.

As the Feba UK radio project developed, the group of street living children helped develop a script for a radio drama series to address child witch accusations and the girls in the group were particularly keen on their experiences being reflected. The part of the drama that they wanted to include was the traumatic ‘baptism’ of young girls on the streets, which is when a girl newly on the streets is ‘initiated’ by being raped.  The girls were very vocal about ensuring that this was reflected correctly in the drama as their experiences and their suffering had previously been ignored.

By being based on the real life experiences of young street living children, the radio drama series and the wider radio project were able to give these children an opportunity to talk about their lives on the streets. Skills development was provided for these street living children to become youth journalists.  This innovative project helped the children find ways to improve their lives and helped change the perception and behaviour of the wider community towards them.

Improving the lives of street living children is a massive challenge and will not happen overnight; however, these youth journalists are persevering and using the media space to share stories, to promote healing and to protect the rights of street living children.  

If this article raises any personal issues please contact your local professional services or contact the helplines below.

In Australia: 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

In UK: National Domestic Violence Helpline 0808 2000 247

Any child living on the street is marginalised, but girls are particularly vulnerable and to survive, many are coerced into sex work.