This story really makes me so upset and angry
Two women and a man were found guilty in a London criminal court Friday of cruelty to an orphan girl from Angola who was tortured and threatened with death for supposedly being a "witch".
The eight-year-old - who was brought to Britain three years ago by her 38-year-old aunt after her parents were killed in Angola - was cut with a knife, beaten with a belt and shoe and had chilli peppers rubbed in her eyes to beat the devil out of her. In a final cruel twist, jurors at the Old Baily were told, she was put into a zip-up laundry bag and told she would be "thrown away" into a river.
The orphan - who today is 10 years old - was beaten until she was made to admit she had been doing witchcraft and is still traumatised by the experience. After she was terrorised in a public housing flat in Hackney, east London, local wardens found her shivering in bare feet on the steps. She told them she was hungry, and later told police that she had been surviving on tea and bread.
"This child was treated as a scapegoat by family members, tormented, subjected to all sorts of assaults which must have caused her considerable pain, fear and distress," crown prosecutor Patricia May said. Both women accused in the case - including the aunt who cannot be named for legal reasons - were cleared of charges of conspiracy to murder the girl.
Giving evidence via video link during the trial, the girl testified: "My aunty (Kisanga) said that my mum and me have got witchcraft. I said if we had been involved in witchcraft we would have killed someone. That is why she wakes us up every night and tells us we are involved in witchcraft."
She said that Kisanga hit her with a high-heeled black shoe which she kept with her, even when she went to bed. "She hits children who come to visit her because everyone who comes to visit her, she says they are involved in witchcraft," the girl added. Asked if Kisanga did anything else when she hit her, the child replied: "She dances in front of me. She is quite a big lady, she just puts her hands round. She laughs when she hits me. She says things like: 'Oh, you have got it now'."