ABSTRACT
Rows of children half-naked or dressed in ragged clothes are crossing the street of Bangui, the capital city of the Central African Republic (CAR). They are children and young people forced to live on the streets by their families or fleeing situations of poverty and unbearable domestic violence. In some cases, these street dwellers have been accused by their own relatives or other adults of being witches1 and of “mystically” causing diseases and misfortune. They live on the streets in order to avoid torture and executions, which are often applied in cases of witchcraft accusations. They walk with their eyes down, searching for food, or they play, apparently carefree. At night, they hide in empty markets or lie on the pavements of the town center. During the day, they wander around Bangui in search of work, or simply looking for somewhere to play or first aid centers. The street children in Bangui are almost all male. The girls, who are abandoned like the boys, are not about: they are victims of forms of exploitation and marginalization less ‘visible’, but I will not analyze this phenomenon here.2
