The stories of 'snake children': killing and abuse of children with developmental disabilities in West Africa.
Children with ID in Côte d’Ivoire are still killed because locals believe they are evil spirits.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Mojdeh (2015) spent time in Côte d’Ivoire villages and cities.
The author listened to local people tell stories about “snake children.”
These are children with intellectual disability who are blamed for family misfortune.
The study used open interviews and field notes to map why some kids are killed or left to die.
What they found
People believe a child with ID is a spirit snake in human form.
This belief gives families a reason to end the child’s life.
The field notes show secret killings, poisonings, and midnight abandonments.
Police rarely act because the custom is widely accepted.
How this fits with other research
Maddox et al. (2015) and Smit et al. (2019) show that kids with ID face more sexual abuse worldwide.
Mojdeh adds a darker layer: in West Africa the abuse can turn into ritual murder.
Enav et al. (2020) counted six times more maltreatment reports for kids with DD in Israeli clinics.
That number backs up Mojdeh’s picture of extreme risk, even though the settings look very different.
Joëlle et al. (2022) moved the lens to Tanzania and found only caregiving hardship, no killings.
The contrast shows that ritual violence is not everywhere in Africa; it is tied to local spirit beliefs.
Why it matters
If you work with West African immigrant families, know that fear of “snake children” may still live in grandmothers’ stories.
Screen for safety during intake. Ask where the child sleeps, who feeds him, and if anyone calls him “snake.”
One question can open the door to life-saving advocacy.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Killing and abuse of children with disabilities are covert phenomena, occurring in some developing regions, such as in some African countries. Similar to the practice of ritual killing of spirit children in Ghana, the phenomenon of the snake child in Cote d'Ivoire (known as Ivory Coast), is the ritual abandonment or killing of children with intellectual disability (ID). METHOD: This study is a qualitative ethnographic investigation into understanding this phenomenon. Three major questions were of interest: (1) Who are the snake children? (2) How are these children viewed and treated? (3) What are ways of changing negative attitudes towards children with developmental disabilities? RESULTS: The practices of killing, abandonment and abuse of children with disabilities take place in Cote d'Ivoire today, although the extent is not known. CONCLUSION: Killing and abuse of children with ID are explained within the context of indigenous African religions, animism and folk culture. The concept of disability 'otherness' and inferiority is also explored as a framework for reflection and ethical debate.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2015 · doi:10.1111/jir.12118