I want to talk to you about a situation concerning a witch girl in my city of Lubumbashi. I am Collard Mush A Mukaz.

Everything had started to change when the girl's father lost his job. He had left the children with their mother, who in turn had to leave the children with their grandmothers due to financial difficulties, to go look for a way to make ends meet in Kolwezi.

As time went on, life at the grandmother's house became increasingly difficult, to the point where the grandmother sought out a prophet for help with prayer and to change the family's situation. Interestingly, the prophet had a prophecy that the girl was a witch and the cause of all the misfortune in the family. The prophet began a session of prayer and torture to make the girl accept that she was a witch, even though she was not.

The prophet prayed for the girl while whipping her with a belt, sometimes even hitting her, just to make her confess that she was a witch. As long as she did not accept that she was a witch, the torture session would continue. After a while, she finally said yes, thinking that the torture would stop, but this marked the beginning of a terrible ordeal.

A 13-year-old girl was chased out of her home and did not know where to go, what to eat, or where to sleep! Her only concern was to go to school like any other child.

Dear parents, pastors, and prophets: children are not witches. Our financial problems do not come from children. Our children simply need education, love, and guidance.