Kindoki Witch Boy film tells true story of Mardoche Yembi who underwent an exorcism as a child. Thousands of children in England have been falsely accused of witchcraft over the past decade, according to new figures that come alongside a film released on Monday.
Faith-based abuse is a worldwide phenomenon but experts found 14,000 social work assessments linked to witchcraft accusations since 2015. In the year running to March 2024 alone, there were 2,180 assessments linked to witchcraft. The statistics, compiled by the National FGM Centre, come as the film Kindoki Witch Boy is released, telling the story of Mardoche Yembi, 33, who was accused of witchcraft as a child growing up in north London and subjected to an exorcism. Its release date also marks the 25th anniversary of the death of Victoria Climbié, an eight-year-old girl who was tortured after accusations of witchcraft were levelled against her.
Yembi hopes that the new film will encourage more of these children who are suffering behind closed doors to come forward. He said: “If a story like Kindoki Witch Boy had been out there when I was a child going through those experiences I would have felt less alone. I want this film to transform something that was bad into something good, to help other children going through the same thing. I hope children who are being accused will see that there is help out there and they can survive it.”.
Kindoki is one of several words used to describe the kind of witchcraft Yembi and Victoria were accused of along with terms sucha as djin, juju and voodoo. Victoria, who died on 25 February 2000, was brought to the UK by her great-aunt Marie-Thérèse Kouao, offering Victoria’s parents a European education. But Victoria was killed, after suffering prolonged and extreme abuse, by Kouao and her partner Carl John Manning.
They said she was possessed by evil spirits and she was exorcised by a pastor and forced to sleep in a bin bag in a freezing cold bathroom. At the time of her death, 128 separate injuries were found on her burned and malnourished body, in one of the most horrific cases of child abuse doctors had ever seen.
She had come into contact with several health and social care services in the months before her killing. Manning and Kouao were jailed for her murder in 2001. Her death led to a child protection service overhaul. Yembi and Victoria were born just weeks apart and lived a few miles from each other in north London. Yembi was sent to the UK at the age of eight by his father from his home country of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after his mother died, to be looked after by relatives.
Like many other children facing witchcraft accusations, Yembi was scapegoated for causing health and financial misfortunes in his relatives’ lives. Social services became concerned about him because his extended family said they wanted to send him back to DRC for an exorcism.
Unlike Victoria, he did not experience physical abuse, but social services placed him with a foster mother who supported him for the next decade. He thrived in her care and now works to support young care leavers. The film, directed by Penny Woolcock, was shot over a period of nine days using a mix of professional and non-professional actors. Jeriah Kibusi plays Yembi and Fatmata B Jalloh plays herself as his foster mother.
Yembi and Victoria never met, but he said that she had been very much in his mind while he had been working on the film. He said: “Part of this film is for her. She didn’t have a chance to make it. I want to keep her name alive.”. Children accused of witchcraft can call Childline on 0800 1111 or NSPCC on 0808 800 500.
