Thank CRARN for Helping the Children being Labeled Witches

Child's Right and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) is a charity organization with a firm belief in, and intent on safeguarding the rights of a child.  It was founded in 2003 with a view to reducing the alarming rate of street and abandoned children branding children as as witches and wizards stop the killing and to ensure their rehabilitation, including other vulnerable children, particularly in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.

Their vision

Worried by the increasing rate of abandoned and street children in our society and the attacks on them due to stigmatization that they are witches and wizards, and their susceptibility to child trafficking syndicates and ritualists, CRARN came up with an idealistic and a pragmatic approach to address this nagging issue.  We believe that these children who are easy victims of modern-day slavery, cheap labour, rape and defilement could be harnessed to become responsible citizens via educational and vocational training.
 
CRARN hopes that if the issue of child abandonement and street children is properly addressed, a good number of children will not only be saved from the scourge of HIV/AIDS , and other dangers, but the society, too will be saved from the nuisance and security threat that will arise from them in the nearest future.
 
What they do
      
CRARN is entirely run by a small, but deeply committed group of young volunteers. We work hard to receive  funding from any government agencies, individuals, corporate bodies to feed and educate more than 150 children at the CRARN Children  Centre and    constantly struggle to meet other  needs of these children and fight for their rights.
 
Aims and Objectives Of CRARN

To stop the branding of children as witches and the killing.

To provide care and support  for orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria

An article about the president of CRARN Sam Ikpe-Itauma, staff and children being attacked.

Police deny attacking charity home

The Police and civic groups working on children's rights are trading blames in Eket, Akwa Ibom State, on who ordered the Friday 3 July police attack on the 202 children in the charity home of the Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN).

Five armed police officers broke into the house of Sam Ikpe-Itauma, CRARN President, pretending to be donors, and seized computers, camera, personal items and a number of documents from his office according to Gary Foxcroft, Programme Director of Stepping Stones Nigeria, a partner organization that supports CRARN's work in a statement circulated to international human rights organizations.

Mr. Foxcroft said, in his statement, that the police, unable to reach Mr. Itauma, subsequently beat and wounded a number of the CRARN children who were protesting against the attempted "arrest" of Mr. Itauma.

"Two children, Idongesit Akpan, 12, and Stella Okon, 11, were beaten unconscious and are now undergoing emergency medical treatment in hospital" the statement claimed, adding that "the police also unlawfully arrested Mr. Ikpe-Itauma's wife, Elizabeth, and another CRARN staff member, Eseme and took them to Eket Police station where they were held, without charge, for over 24 hours before being freed on bail."

However, the police commissioner for the state, Walter Rugbere, responding to the claims of Mr. Foxcroft, was sharp and stern, saying: "It's the biggest lie, you can't just go and beat up children, and it's not true." Mr. Rugbere insisted that "If there is anything like that, I should have heard of it. I am the commissioner of police, nothing like that has happened. I don't think I've heard of anything like that."

CRARN and Stepping Stone workers are nevertheless standing to their claims, maintaining that they believe the police assault was connected to the much publicised Channel 4 documentary, Saving Africa's Witch Children, which brought the abuse of children, accused of witchcraft in Akwa Ibom to light late last year.

Partnership for Justice, PFJ, another civic group which works on the rights of children, sided with CRARN in a release Monday 6 July in Lagos adding that it was "disappointed that the Nigeria Police Force, which is supposed to be an agency for enforcing the provisions of the Act, has turned itself against it."

"It is even more disappointing that Akwa Ibom State which has joined other states in passing the Child Rights Law could stoop so low to desecrate its provisions by conniving with the Police to invade and beat up children and persons at the Network" Said PFJ in the release signed by its Senior Partner, John Oziegbe.

The documentary cited by CRARN featured some of the abuse victims who were being housed by the organisation, and also named a religious leader, Helen Ukpabio, as one of those perpetrating the branding of children as witches. Mrs. Ukpabio, whose Pentecostal church has produced several movies one of which reportedly presented children as witches, was also featured in the video as she denied the allegation.

Mr. Ikpe-Itauma also drew attention to the presence of Lagos lawyer, Victor Ukutt, who is Mrs. Ukpabio's attorney, in the company of the attacking police officers.

Mr. Ukutt, in a telephone interview with NEXT, declined to confirm whether or not he had accompanied the police officers to arrest the CRARN staff, asserting in a zigzag way that: "I did not say that I was there, I am not also saying that I was not there."

Yet it appeared that Mr. Ukutt sought to challenge the claims of CRARN regarding the basis of the police attack when he argued that "they have a case to settle with the police, they should go and settle their case with the police [because] Mrs. Ukpabio had filed a law suit against the charity for piracy of the intellectual property of Mrs Helen Ukpabio.

"They counterfeited her film and used it to make a documentary and showed it on Chanel 4 and said Mrs Helen Ukpabio labelled children as witches" Mr. Ukutt fumed.

Nonetheless, counsel to CRARN, Ben Ndedde, denied the existence of a suit filed against the charity by Mrs. Ukpabio. "We have not seen any suit from them. We have only received a letter threatening to sue. In the letter, they demanded that we should pay them N10 billion," he said.

"Since we received that first letter, we have not heard from them again," Mr. Ndedde added.

Reacting to the CRARN assault, over 200 children, branded as witches, staged a solidarity protest in support of their assaulted peers in Eket Monday 6 July.

The protesting children, abandoned by their parents and sheltered by CRARN, were led by Mr. Ikpe-Itauma who told NEXT, in a telephone interview, that five men in plain clothes arrived in the centre at about 10am on Friday armed with pistols and AK-47 rifles in a light brown salon car and refused to disclose their identity, claiming that they had come from Abuja seeking to arrest him.

Mr. Ikpe-Itauma who now fears for his life believes that "their intention may have been to kill me and then conceal their identity," and added that "I've been suspicious of hoodlums for some time now, so when they came, I ran into my room."

Also reacting to the development, Maryam Uwais, an Abuja based attorney and National Human Rights Commission (NHR) Special Rapporteur on the Rights of the Child, called for a more open minded approach to solve the problem.

"The government just has to budget for and step in with laws, policies, institutions and mechanisms for implementation (including advocacy) and also ensure formidable support for those NGOs and individuals who work in this sphere of child protection, especially because, as events have demonstrated, it can be a very dangerous venture," she said.

BBC World Service Interview with Gary Foxcroft and Sam Itauma
Find out more about the positive changes that have taken place in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria over the last 12 months by listening to the interview HERE

Return to Africa's Witch Children
For those of you who missed the documentary, you can watch it HERE

Relate Petitions:

Stop Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries of Nigeria from labeling children as witches.

To eradicate the use of unprivileged children as modern day slaves

Help the Child Witches of Nigeria - Support the Prevent Abandonment of Children Today(PACT) Campaign

Help Make Helen Ukpabio Face Justice

Thank SSN for Helping the Children being Branded as Witches.