Criancas Feiticeiras

I came across a disturbing article on Yahoo.com from The Chicago Tribune. It regards child witches in Angola, a country who recently went through an internal civil war. Experts seem bewieldered to provide an answer to why this is occurring. Even scarier are that "children as young as 5 have been hanged, stoned to death, raped, burned and drowned in rivers after being accused of sorcery. " It reminded me of the Salem Witchcraft trials.

Such things as depicted above seem so far, remote, and incredulous to me, living in the United States. Yet, there are thousands of cases of child abuse anually. In all likelihood, there are far more that go unreported. Now that is a sobering thought. We may no longer have much of a notion of Criancas Feiticeiras, no do we prescribe all that much to the idea o witches sans Halloween but raping, drowning, and burning still persist. As a pediatrician in training, I find it a difficult task. Is this bruise accidental or did something else cause it? Is this an innocent cut caused by playing or does it bode something more ominous? Sometimes it is difficult to tell.

Pretty sobering thoughts for an early Sunday morning ...