If a child under the age of two screams in the night, cries and is always feverish with deteriorating health he or she is a servant of Satan.

Helen Ukpabio (Evangelist (Mrs.)) is the founder and head of African Evangelical franchise Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries based in Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria. She was born in the village of Mbente, Imo State, Nigeria on November the 22nd, 1969 and is married to a Dr. Elijah Ukpabio with three children. During her early life she was educated at St. George's Catholic School in Falomo, Jinadu Anglican School in Obalende and the Methodist Girls' School in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State, all in south-eastern Nigeria.[1]

In 1992, Helen Ukpabio founded Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries with the aim of spreading her often literal interpretations of the Holy Bible to the people of West Africa.[2] The belief most often associated with Mrs. Ukpabio and her organisation is a claim that Satan has the ability to manifest himself in the bodies of children by demonic possession and make them become his servants in the form of 'witches' or 'wizards'.

Most Africans have a strong tendency to believe in superstition and myth, particularly when related to spiritual or demonic possession or witchcraft.[3] This allowed Helen Ukpabio's organisation to grow exponentionally throughout Nigeria and West Africa since its foundation. There are now major Liberty Gospel Churches in Cameroon, Rome, Ghana and South Africa as well as Nigeria.

In 2008, it was claimed in a British 'Dispatches' TV documentary by UK broadcaster Channel 4 that the views that she expresses has lead to a massive upsurge in children stigmatised and abandoned by their families in West Africa, particularly in Akwa Ibom State.[6] This programme followed the activities of two charities, CRARN and Stepping Stones Nigeria , which aimed to look after the children who have been rejected by their parents for displaying what they believed to be signs of witchcraft.[7]

Mary Sunday Dan, 11 years, hails from Ibaka, Mbo Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. She is the only child in the camp whose parents are living together. Her father is an Evangelist in a Pentecostal church and the mother is a Deconess.

Mary was found alongside five other children searching for food from a stinking garbage mount in a market. On interviewing her, she voluntarily told CRARN the following story:

" My parents took me to the church for a Tarry Night (Watch and Pray Night) in January 2003. It was here that one of the prophetess pronounced that I was a witch, along with two other children. Since then my parents began to hate and kept a close watch on me. They accused me and my brother, Elijah of spiritually destabilising their economic progress and killing our 3 month old sister. Elijah
was later forced to drink caustic soda. He became ill and vomited blood and died later.

They also forced me to drink hot soda one midnight but I refused. They poured it on my head and body instead. I started screaming and crying. My father at once took me on a motor bike claiming we were going to the hospital. He rather dropped me in a far away forest. After 4 days, a man found me and took back home. The villagers who saw my situation became alarmed. They forced my parents out of the village accusing them of practising real witchcraft. My father took me on a bike and dropped me in a distant city where I roamed the street and met many other street children in a big market.

Every day at midnight a gang of boys would come and rape us several times and ask our boys to enter people's stores to steal for them.