Submitted by crinadmin on
Since the work of Stepping Stones Nigeria (SSN) and one of their partners, the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) was featured in the multi-award winning documentary Saving Africa's Witch Children in 2008, the two organisations have reported an escalation in threats, harassment and intimidation. In 2009 a powerful local pastor – Helen Ukpabio – launched two court cases against SSN and CRARN, sent her followers to raid a child rights conference and beat up its organisers and instructed a lawyer to take police officers to the CRARN centre where they falsely arrested a number of staff and beat some of the children. Recent developments have seen the Akwa Ibom State Government launch a widespread media campaign stating that SSN and CRARN are fraudulent organisations who have used the children under their care to extort millions of pounds from the international community and demanding that the President of CRARN – Sam Itauma – and the Programme Director of SSN – Gary Foxcroft – should both be arrested. SSN states that these allegations are entirely false and that our accounts are publically available for all to see. On Wednesday 10th November the CRARN centre in Eket, Akwa Ibom was raided by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), who said that a petition had been filed against CRARN and that they were seeking to arrest Mr Itauma. When informed that he was not on the premises, they initially arrested another staff member, Mr Bassey, but he was released following protests from the children at CRARN. They are deeply alarmed about this harassment and intimidation of defenders of children's rights. We are particularly worried that the media campaign against SSN and CRARN's work has contributed to a climate in which violence against the staff and children at the CRARN children's centre is implicitly encouraged and is therefore becoming highly likely. Finally, on Monday 22nd November, the Governor of Akwa Ibom announced the establishment of a Commission of Inquiry into the veracity and extent of child witchcraft accusations. If this Commission carries out this task in a spirit of honesty and transparency and is actually intended to improve child rights protection in Akwa Ibom we of course welcome it and are happy to work with it. However, we are very concerned that it will be used as a politically motivated tool to discredit both ourselves and our partners and to prevent us from continuing to work on this issue. For information on how to take action, contact Emilie Secker at [email protected].