Child Sacrifice

I mentioned that I saw a parade the other day, and that people in the procession were carrying banners speaking out against "child sacrifices."

At the time, I didn't know what this meant. In the two days since, I've learned what the paraders were protesting.

It is easy to make jokes about witch doctors and their voodoo practice when separated from that reality by thousands of miles. Here in Uganda, witch doctors are a very real part of everyday life, and the practice of some is horifically serious.

In villages outside Kampala, and even for some who make the capital their home, witch doctors and their long tradition in Uganda provide, what conscripts believe to be, an opportunity at success and wealth achieved by mystical means.

A man hoping to find wealth may visit a witch doctor looking for a path to that fortune. Some of these "doctors" will prescribe a human sacrifice. Typically, the doctor will seek a pure human, untainted by physical scars. A young girl with pierced ears or a boy who has been circumcised would not qualify. For that reason, very young children who haven't lived long enough to have scraped a knee or burned a finger are the most likely candidates to meet the purity requirement of the doctor.

The prosecutor told us a story of a man bringing an eight-month old infant to a witch doctor. In another case, a father offered his own nine-year old daughter as a sacrifice.

In order to ensure the success of a building's construction, the owner of the land may seek out a witch doctor. Evidently, the witch doctor will indicate that a human head being placed in the foundation of the building will provide good luck for the owner. Again, children are the best candidates for this, because while they may be scarred, it is simply easier to kill a child than a grown adult, or so the reasoning goes.

Surely, you are thinking, these incidents are the exception, not the rule. But in speaking with a prosecutor in the Directorate of Public Prosecutions office, the crime is fairly common, and the above descriptions depict actual cases that have come before Ugandan courts in the last few months. The prosecutor estimated three or four percent of all murders, the most common crime in his district of five million Ugandans, stem directly from a witch doctor's "prescription," and these numbers are growing.