The torture and killing of a 15-year-old boy has prompted an Islington charity to call for new laws curbing witchcraft.
Kristy Bamu, a French teenager sent to the UK for a holiday, was brutally tortured with knives, sticks and metal bars in 2010 by his sister and her partner who believed he was a witch. The boy eventually drowned in a bath in the couple’s flat in Newham while being given a “ritual cleansing”.
The brutal ceremonial murder has sparked fears of copy cat crimes across the country.
Africans Unite Against Child Abuse (AFRUCA) on Essex Road said a law making it illegal to call a child a witch would protect against incidents of abuse throughout the UK.
“There should be a provision in the law to make it an offence to call someone in the witch”, said Justin Bahunga, who heads AFRUCA’s unit dedicated to stamping out faith-based abuse. “When you say someone is a witch, you are saying they are an evil person, who can cause harm or misfortune.
“It is an incitement to violence. You are opening the door for someone to harm a child. From being an innocent child to, they go to be a perpetrator of a crime.”
AFRUCA held a workshop to tackle abuse linked to witchcraft and spirit possession on Holloway Road last September.
Islington hit the headlines ten years ago, when it was revealed that Victoria Climbie, who was murdered by her adopted mother, was taken to a church in Finsbury Park three days before her death.
The church minister of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, on Seven Sisters Road, revealed in court how he had failed to report what he suspected was neglect and told the woman he thought her problem was spiritual.
Churches and Mosques have been known to charge money to parents who wish their children to be exorcised by evil spirits.
Mr Bahunga said that religious leaders guilty of such practices would only react to a change in the law because they were motivated by profit, not belief.
“I would call them the conmen – they do not deserve to be called pastors,” he added. “We have to stop letting them make money out of exploiting children and introduce laws meaning they cannot do this.
“We can’t go on when the person who carried out the abuse is being punished while the pastor who incited the violence is going free.”
