CHILDREN ACCUSED OF PRACTICING WITCHCRAFT IN AKWA IBOM, NIGERIA: A QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS OF ONLINE NEWS MEDIA
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs44201312696Keywords:
children accused of practicing witchcraft, pentecostalism, online news mediaAbstract
This essay analyzes online news media reactions to the labeling and stigmatizing of children as witches in Eket, within the state of Akwa Ibom, Nigeria. The paper was triggered by Governor Godswill Akpabio’s August 30, 2010, appearance on CNN, during which he stated that the situation of these stigmatized children is exaggerated. This essay seeks to understand what perspectives the online news media created in response to Akpabio's interview. Three themes - the children accused, the behavior of the gatekeepers (i.e., among others, parents, guardians, religious leaders, and government officials), and the practice of witchcraft - emerge from the data. The results reveal the following: (a) the Governor is defensive and in denial, (b) the involved pastors are opportunists, and (c) the accused children are abandoned, maltreated, and sometimes murdered. Results also show that none of the analyzed online news media specifically blame the parents of the accused children; rather they blame the Governor and pastors, and specifically Helen Ukpabio. Further analysis indicates that poverty is not necessarily the root of the problem as the Governor claims. The essay recommends acknowledgement of folk belief systems in the training of gatekeepers.
Downloads
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors contributing to the International Journal of Child, Youth and Family Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 Unported license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
Rights Granted After Publication
After publication, authors may reuse portions or the full article without obtaining formal permission for inclusion within their thesis or dissertation.
Permission for these reuses is granted on the following conditions:
- that full acknowledgement is made of the original publication stating the specific material reused [pages, figure numbers, etc.], [Title] by/edited by [Author/editor], [year of publication], reproduced by permission of International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies [link to IJCYFS website];
- In the case of joint-authored works, it is the responsibility of the author to obtain permission from co-authors for the work to be reuse/republished;
- that reuse on personal websites and institutional or subject-based repositories includes a link to the work as published in the International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies; and that the material is not distributed under any kind of Open Access style licences (e.g. Creative Commons) which may affect the Licence between the author and IJCYFS.
