Thousands of British children are being subjected to “terrifying abuse” in the name of witchcraft or spiritual possession, despite only a handful of incidents being reported to police each year.
For some children, conditions like autism, epilepsy, or Down’s syndrome are wrongly interpreted as evidence of evil, while others are forced to be the scapegoat for their family's own misfortunes.
As one of those children, Mardoche Yembi, then 11, was “treated like a monster” after his pastor convinced his family he was possessed by evil spirits.
He has told The Independent how he was starved, made to stay away from other children, and labelled as “a servant of Satan” by the people meant to care for him.
Now, along with other victims and campaigners, he is calling for stronger protection for children suffering abuse linked to spiritual possession or witchcraft.
In 2024, there were 2,180 known instances of this abuse, but only seven reports were made to the police. More than 1,300 of the 36,700 calls to the National Association for People Abused in Childhood’s helpline between 2016 and 2025 mentioned organised or ritualistic abuse.
Mr Yembi was born in a small village in Congo, but was sent to live with his uncle and aunt in London in 1999 after his mother passed away.
He was just eight at the time and his father had hoped that England would offer him a better life.
“I remember talking to my uncle’s wife about the UK and how the sky here was such a different colour blue,” he said. “I really believed I was going somewhere safe.”
But a few years after Mr Yembi moved to north London, his aunt started having spiritual dreams and confided in her pastor at a church in Brixton, who told her that Mr Yembi was a “Kindoki” child, meaning he was possessed by the devil.
“The pastor told them I travelled at night on a peanut shell to do my witchcraft. And every time he came to our house, he made me search for that peanut shell, sometimes for hours, knowing there was nothing there, but watching me panic and cry while everyone stared at me.”
His uncle told him he was “too black”, which meant he must be a witch. “He would come in my room... and just start screaming at me,” Mr Yembi said. “I was lonely, scared, and I'm thinking, ‘this can't be life’.”
Mr Yembi was forbidden from playing with other children, and blamed when someone was ill or injured.
“People stopped talking to me. Adults looked at me with fear. Children avoided me,” he said.
“One time, I was playing football in the park with some other children from the neighbourhood when my aunt walked up to the kids telling them that I am a witch and that I am evil and fly at night to hurt people, plus I killed my own mother and sister. The news quickly spread around the community.”
Mr Yembi ran away for days at a time out of fear of being at his home. “I went to the police to explain it to them, and one of them said ‘you're wasting our time’.”
It wasn’t until his aunt told his school that she was sending Mr Yembi to Africa for a “deliverance”, a spiritual salvation, that social services got involved.
He was eventually placed into foster care, where “for the first time, someone saw me as a child”, he said.
After graduating secondary school as head boy, he went on to create ‘Kindoki Witchboy’, a short film about his experience.
The release marked the anniversary of the death of Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old girl who was murdered just a few miles away in 2000, after accusations of witchcraft were levelled against her by her family.
Mr Yembi and other victims joined Jess Phillips and Barrister Kirsty Brimelow in parliament on Monday, urging the government for stronger protection for children facing similar accusations.
Ms Phillips, the Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley, said: “Anyone who thinks witchcraft, spirit possession and ritualistic abuse is something that only happens in certain communities, or in other countries, is wrong.
“This form of abuse is happening in our country today, and we need to do more to listen and understand.”
Barnardo’s female genital mutilation centre has spent a decade looking into this kind of cruelty. Its head, Rohma Ullah, has seen many children suffer through physical, emotional, and sexual abuse.
“It is often linked to when families experience some kind of misfortune...often things like mental health, financial burden, domestic abuse, ill health...or when families experience, for example, exclusion because of poverty.
“They use children as a scapegoat for that misfortune.”
She said the abuse is often described as a “crime of the community”, because a wider network of people are typically involved.
Children with differences or disabilities are also targeted more frequently, she said.
Speaking to The Independent, Ms Ullah recalled meeting a child with a “cone-shaped head”, whose father was considering an exorcism at the instruction of their pastor.
“It turned out the little boy had a tumour.”
She is urging the government to update its existing legislation and introduce civil protection orders, as well as specialist support for victims.
The charity is also calling for improved data collection, including a data marker on the National Referral Mechanism, the UK's official framework for identifying and supporting victims of human trafficking and modern slavery.
“There's a strong link between human trafficking, modern slavery, and witchcraft spirit possession.”
A Department for Education spokesperson said: “There is nothing more important than the safety of our children, and no child should ever face abuse of any kind.
"Our strengthened Working Together to Safeguard Children guidance explicitly requires those working with children to recognise and respond to faith and belief-based abuse, alongside our Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance which gives staff robust, clear information on identifying and responding to these forms of harm.”
