Guardian item (TRIGGER) - witchcraft a factor in growing # of child abuse cases

[PerditaPickle]

Trigger warning: topic of child abuse.

The item says child protection cases 'based' on faith or belief are up by a third in the last year in England.

I was upset to read this, as I usually consider The Guardian to be one of the more credible newspapers.

However,  I'm not someone with much expertise in interpreting data, so I need to remind myself that newspapers are in the business of selling a product  and tend to summarise info in an over simplistic way to try to make those sales.

I put this in non-religious news as it's not news from any religious institution, it's news allegedly about an impact a religion is having on other aspects of people's lives here in England (if that makes sense...)

[Anon100]

Trigger warning: topic of child abuse.

The item says child protection cases 'based' on faith or belief are up by a third in the last year in England.

I was upset to read this, as I usually consider The Guardian to be one of the more credible newspapers.

For saftey I'll add a Trigger warning on this reply too..

I couldn't open the link you posted Perdita but a quick search found this ( Trigger warning on link - https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/14/priests-put-chili-powder-childrens-genitals-rid-devil-11127394/ ) on Metro.

I read it more as religion being used as a way to validate people's disability hatreds and phobias. The same as, I've heard, it has been with sexual and gender issues. The fact that people feel religions of any kind can be used to validate such hatred and even use it against their children is dispicable

[Sefiru]

I was upset to read this, as I usually consider The Guardian to be one of the more credible newspapers.

However,  I'm not someone with much expertise in interpreting data, so I need to remind myself that newspapers are in the business of selling a product  and tend to summarise info in an over simplistic way to try to make those sales.

(Your link wasn't working, I was able to find the article and fixed the link.)

I read over the article, and there are a few things going on here, none of which have to do with Witchcraft in the neo-pagan sense.

The headline is most certainly Satanic Panic clickbait.

In the body of the article, the 'faith-based abuse' being discussed is not abuse by witches (a la Satanic ritual abuse) but abuse of people thought to be witches or possessed. Of the three specific cases mentioned, at least two were this kind of 'exorcism' abuse. Female genital mutilation is also mentioned as a concern.

[Kylara]

(Your link wasn't working, I was able to find the article and fixed the link.)

I read over the article, and there are a few things going on here, none of which have to do with Witchcraft in the neo-pagan sense.

The headline is most certainly Satanic Panic clickbait.

In the body of the article, the 'faith-based abuse' being discussed is not abuse by witches (a la Satanic ritual abuse) but abuse of people thought to be witches or possessed. Of the three specific cases mentioned, at least two were this kind of 'exorcism' abuse. Female genital mutilation is also mentioned as a concern.

This was how I read the article too.  It wasn't that the people who practice witchcraft were doing the abuse, but it was other people who believed their kids were either the target of or practicing witchcraft/possession who were abusing them.

Honestly, thinking back, all of the cases I have seen where a child is abused and some kind of spiritual reasoning is given, I can't think of a single one that wasn't some flavor of Christianity.  I'm not saying that there aren't abusers of all faiths (because people), or that all Christians would agree with these people (because obviously that's also not true, there are some amazing, wonderful Christians out there), but that has just been my experience that the crazy spiritually motivated abuse cases are almost always fear based Christians (and the abuse was always  done 'to save the child's soul' or some such)

This particular article was absolutely worded to feed into the anti-witchcraft hysteria.  The wording is very precise, and they hint an insinuate a lot of stuff, but very carefully avoid actually linking the abuse and practice of witchcraft.  Using the phrase "cases based on faith or belief" is so inclusive it really could include anything.

[Sefiru]

This particular article was absolutely worded to feed into the anti-witchcraft hysteria. 

I caught more than a whiff of xenophobia, too, considering all of the cases it mentions involved immigrants. 

[SunflowerP]

I caught more than a whiff of xenophobia, too, considering all of the cases it mentions involved immigrants. 

I was pleased to see that The Wild Hunt had put in some journalistic research on this. And, yeah, basically every news source in the UK pounced on the clickbaity angle at the expense of the actual content of the report purportedly being reported on. TWH isn't anywhere near Pulitzer-winning standards yet, but 'doing their research better than the Guardian' is something they can be proud of.

Sunflower

[PerditaPickle]

(Your link wasn't working, I was able to find the article and fixed the link.)

Thank you - I tried quite hard to make the link work, but then failed to check that it actually had once I'd made the thread.

[PerditaPickle]

I was pleased to see that The Wild Hunt had put in some journalistic research on this. And, yeah, basically every news source in the UK pounced on the clickbaity angle at the expense of the actual content of the report purportedly being reported on. TWH isn't anywhere near Pulitzer-winning standards yet, but 'doing their research better than the Guardian' is something they can be proud of.

Sunflower

Yes, you know what, this TWH item actually reads more professionally to me than the Guardian item had done.  And makes it somewhat clearer what the original sources was, too, if you ask me anyways.

Edit to correct typo