Official finding Witchcraft- and sorcery-accusation violence Killing or assault after a witchcraft or sorcery accusation Democratic Republic of the Congo · 2017

DR Congo: the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reports rising numbers of children murdered after being accused of witchcraft, and impunity for perpetrators linked to certain churches

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Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

the churches to which the Committee links perpetrators facing impunity, religious leaders, whom the Committee identifies as a group the State party must target in prevention work

Organization

United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

Children are murdered and ill-treated because they have been accused of witchcraft, and the Committee locates the impunity of those responsible in their links to certain churches — identifying religious institutions as the setting in which the accusation is made and acted on without consequence, and religious leaders as a group the State party must reach to prevent it.

Curse or witchcraft threat
Exorcism or deliverance
Violent occult ideology or sacrifice

Scope decision

This is an inverse-relation record and is filed accordingly. The children were not under their attackers' spiritual authority; they were harmed because witchcraft was attributed to THEM. Records of that shape belong with accusation-driven violence and must never be read as a religious figure abusing followers. This is an official finding by a United Nations treaty body, not a criminal proceeding: nobody was prosecuted, no court has adjudicated anything recorded here, and no individual or named church is accused. The Committee's phrase is 'perpetrators linked to certain churches' — it does not identify which churches, and neither does this archive; the record must not be read as a finding against any denomination or congregation, and the great majority of Congolese churches are not implicated by it. The Committee also directs prevention work at parents and at poverty as a root cause, which is recorded here so the finding is not read as attributing the practice solely to churches. No figure is asserted for the number of children killed, because the Committee gives none — its finding is of an increasing number reported. The Committee's separate findings on female genital mutilation in the same document are not part of this record. The observations describe the Democratic Republic of the Congo as at February 2017.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2017-02-03 · concluding observations adopted

United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (treaty body established under the Convention on the Rights of the Child). In its concluding observations on the combined third to fifth periodic reports of the Democratic Republic of the Congo the Committee 'expresse[d] its grave concern about reports of an increasing number of murders of, and incidents of ill-treatment and violence against, children accused of witchcraft and the impunity faced by perpetrators linked to certain churches'. Reiterating a recommendation it had made in its previous concluding observations, it urged the State party to take effective measures to prevent children from being accused of witchcraft, 'including by continuing and strengthening public awareness-raising activities, directed particularly at parents and religious leaders, and by addressing the root causes, including poverty'. It further urged the State party 'to implement legislative and other measures to criminalize the persecution of children accused of witchcraft and bring to justice persons responsible for violence against and ill-treatment of children accused of witchcraft', and recommended recovery and reintegration measures for child victims.

Documented coercion mechanisms

the accusation of witchcraft levelled at a child
murder, ill-treatment and violence following that accusation
impunity for perpetrators linked to certain churches
the absence of legislation criminalising the persecution of children accused of witchcraft

Cited record

Sources

un treaty body concluding observations United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, Concluding observations on the combined third to fifth periodic reports of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, CRC/C/COD/CO/3-5 (adopted 3 February 2017, issued 28 February 2017).: The Committee's own concluding observations, retrieved as PDF from the United Nations documents system and read in full. Paragraph 29 records that the Committee 'expresses its grave concern about reports of an increasing number of murders of, and incidents of ill-treatment and violence against, children accused of witchcraft and the impunity faced by perpetrators linked to certain churches'. Paragraph 30 reiterates the recommendation made at CRC/C/COD/CO/2 ¶79 and urges the State party to prevent children from being accused of witchcraft 'including by continuing and strengthening public awareness-raising activities, directed particularly at parents and religious leaders, and by addressing the root causes, including poverty', to 'implement legislative and other measures to criminalize the persecution of children accused of witchcraft and bring to justice persons responsible for violence against and ill-treatment of children accused of witchcraft', and to provide recovery and reintegration measures for child victims.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://documents.un.org/api/symbol/access?s=CRC%2FC%2FCOD%2FCO%2F3-5&l=en&t=pdf Corpus classification: un-treaty-body; evidentiary role: concluding-observations.
Retrieval: 2026-07-29 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-29 (CRC channel; UN document retrieved directly from documents.un.org, PDF magic bytes verified, converted with pdftotext and paragraphs 29 and 30 checked verbatim before drafting)

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