Plan cracks down on faith-based abuse

At the age of just 15, Kristy Bamu was killed at the hands of his sister and her boyfriend. He had been accused of practising “kindoki” or witchcraft during a visit to London. He was tortured for three days and drowned in a bath in Newham in December 2010.

In January 2011, children’s minister Tim Loughton met with a group of charities to discuss the issue of faith-based child abuse. A working group was established to develop solutions to the issue.

The culmination of the group’s work has now been published by the government. Its national action plan to tackle child abuse linked to faith or belief is designed to cut through the “wall of silence” around ritual child abuse.

Here, CYP Now examines the key points as they affect professionals, communities and victims.

Professionals

One of the reasons that Loughton believes faith-based abuse goes unchallenged is that professionals “misunderstand the causes or are cowed by political correctness”.

The government argues that professionals will be less apprehensive about challenging suspected cases of faith-based abuse if they understand the issue and can make informed decisions on whether a child is at risk.

The action plan proposes that providers of initial social work training and continuing professional development should amend their courses to cover culture and faith safeguarding issues such as faith-based abuse, female genital mutilation and forced marriage. It recommends bespoke training for the police, teachers and health workers so they can recognise when “abuse linked to belief” is occurring.

The plan urges local safeguarding children boards (LSCBs) to improve staff training at a local level, and calls on the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, the College of Social Work and the London Safeguarding Children Board to lead national improve-ments in frontline practice. The Victoria Climbié Foundation is working with the National College to inform school leaders about faith-based abuse. It plans to approach the Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of GPs and Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health to embark on similar work.

The plan, meanwhile, suggests that Ofsted work to increase understanding of faith-based abuse among inspectors, to improve inspections of services charged with protecting children at risk. Ofsted has also been urged to review international evidence on faith-based abuse to boost professional understanding of ?the issue.

Communities

The government wants children’s services professionals to do more to engage with communities on the issue of faith-based abuse.

The action plan calls on LSCBs to set up structured networks or sub-groups of faith leaders, develop culture and faith protocols and establish a point of contact for people to report concerns about faith-based abuse.

The plan suggests using the work of anti-bullying charities as a model for supporting children to protect themselves from faith-based abuse. For example, peer-to-peer support could be offered to at-risk children at school, while local youth leaders could be involved in raising the issue with young people they work with.

The plan also says children who have been victims of ritual abuse should be enabled to tell their stories through drama and poetry; and training packs of stories for schools should be created, to be used alongside campaigns designed to raise awareness of the issue among potential victims.

To gain a better understanding of faith-based child abuse, the plan recommends that LSCBs undertake research into the risks in their area and how local professionals respond to these risks.

It suggests providing training sessions for parents on witchcraft and related issues such as children’s rights and child trafficking. Such training could be offered at religious, community or social events, the plan says.

The government also wants LSCBs to do more to try to attract charitable backing to support their work to tackle witchcraft ?or faith-based abuse by bidding for funding from grants organisations and building relationships with potential funders.

Victims

According to the action plan, evidence suggests that children subjected to faith-based abuse are often being treated as scapegoats for family stress, domestic violence, substance abuse or mental health problems.

“The most vulnerable people within a group offer the least ability to resist being scapegoated,” it says. “Children are a group who are inherently vulnerable.”

It says children that are perceived to be “different” because they have a disability or learning difficulty, an illness or are exceptionally intelligent are most at risk.

To address this, the government wants professionals to promote access to child and adolescent mental health provision and special educational needs and disability support among faith communities. The plan says LSCBs should also raise access to psychological and therapeutic support for victims of abuse and for the children of perpetrators.

The charity Africans Unite Against Child Abuse is working with Newham council and the London Safeguarding Children Board to establish a project to support victims of witchcraft abuse, which could be used as a model for other areas.

The Department for Education is planning to work with the UK Border Agency on improving approaches to identifying trafficking and child victims of faith-based abuse.

In order to increase the number of prosecutions, the plan sets out measures to improve support for victims to give evidence in court – by allowing them to give evidence in private or from behind screens. It also suggests raising awareness among police and judges of how faith-based abuse relates to other crimes, including trafficking and sexual exploitation.