Congo militia kidnapping and luring children to serve as witch doctors, rights groups say

Report: Congo militia recruits child witch doctors

KINSHASA, Congo — Congolese children are being lured to fight and serve as witch doctors for an armed group in volatile eastern Congo, rights groups said Friday, and called on the United Nations to disarm fighters and stop child exploitation.

The report from the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers said children are targeted by the Mai Mai militia because the group believes their lack of sexual experience gives them special powers as witch doctors.

The children are called on to administer potions believed to make fighters invincible, the report said. In doing so, the children are often given a false sense of invincibility themselves, putting them at further risk.

Congolese government spokesman Lambert Mende said the Congolese government is trying to disarm such groups and punish fighters who resist.

“The government can only condemn the behavior of armed groups like the Mai Mai militia of using child soldiers or children as their witch doctors,” he said.

The report said poverty, conflict and a lack of other options in eastern Congo also compel children to voluntarily join armed groups. One 15-year-old boy quoted in the report told investigators that he joined the Mai Mai militia on the advice of his parents, who told him he would be fed regularly — with meat, an unavailable luxury in his impoverished home — if he joined.

The group’s director, Victoria Forbes Adam, also called on Congo’s government to provide more options for children.

“Reducing vulnerability of boys and girls to Mai Mai exploitation means fundamentally changing children’s life chances and providing them with a genuine alternative to joining militias,” she said.

The report also called on the ill-trained and poorly organized Congolese army to purge child soldiers from its own ranks.

“The Congolese government could make a significant difference simply by implementing its own policy and laws,” Forbes Adam said. “This means systematically investigating and prosecuting those who recruit and use children and ensuring that any former Mai Mai integrated into the (Congolese army) suspected of committing abuses against children are removed.”

In early 2009, a top rebel leader from another militia was arrested and the Congolese government began a campaign to integrate all militias, including the Mai Mai, into the national army. At least 478 children, including 15 girls, were demobilized in eastern Congo in the first two months of the integration process, according to UNICEF.

The report also noted that not all children are used by the Mai Mai as witch doctors. It noted that some children are used as front-line fighters and girls are often used as sex slaves.

Eastern Congo has been wracked by violence since Rwanda’s 1994 genocide spilled war across the border. The shadowy, pro-government Mai Mai militia is one of many armed groups in the area. Their fighters have been seen using rudimentary weapons like spears and their group is believed to value mysticism.

Plagued by utter lawlessness, eastern Congo has been occupied by swarms of militias for more than a decade who have taken up arms to defend themselves in remote rural villages in the hills.