Steven Ajayi takes care of 119 children who live at the Vine Heritage Home in Nigeria, a shelter he opened in 2004 for children who have been branded as evil in their communities.
Campaign Tackles Baby-killing Ritual in Nigeria
- By Chika Oduah
1
Gift, 2 years old, was condemned by her community when her mother died shortly after childbirth. Among some clans of the Bassa Komo people in Nigeria is a traditional belief that children who lost their mother during or shortly after children are evil.
2
Steven Olusola Ajayi, a Christian missionary, rescues children from communities that practice ritual infanticide, or killing babies that are perceived to be evil.
3
The Vine Heritage Home Foundation opened in 2004 in the outskirts of the Nigerian capital of Abuja as a shelter for so-called “evil children.”
4
The babies in the Vine Heritage Home Foundation in Nigeria have all been branded evil by their native communities.