Gender Equality Ghana Project #23422

End Human Rights Abuses Against Alleged Witches

by Songtaba

End Human Rights Abuses Against Alleged Witches

Project Report | Nov 27, 2017
Soliciting community support

By Lamnatu Adam | project Leader

project team member interracting with community

Dear Readers!

Once again we have come come to the end of another intersting quarter of the journey on ending human rights abuses against alleged witches. After a successfuly reintegration of the the project target of 20 women, Songtata during the quarter under review redirected energies towards seeking community support on approriate mechanisms to protect person who have abused as being witches

Songtaba over the period has been in talks with the four district assemblies and some communities where these witch camps are located to explore workable avenues and opportunities to successfully put an end to this human rights abuse of torture, harassment and banishment. Songtaba made visits to 20 communities and they had interesting opinions on how we could resolve this

in a focus group discussion in Kulgona community, a community leader made very important suggestions that if adopted and enfoerced the bthe local authorities will be very beneficial in the fights against human rights abuses against persons accused of witchcraft. he narrated:

Trial by ordeal which is the common way communities used to determine the fate of accused persons in itself is not right and should be stopped. Local athoroties with the mandate should enact bye-laws to put a barn on it. onece it is an individual who lead the trial by ordeal process, he can be compromosed and the out come of his judgement could be false and and innocent person convicted to be a witch. he went further to also called on local athorities to improve on the health centers in their communities where they can refer certain sicknesses to which are often time attributed tio witchcraft.

however, amidst these positive remarks from the community member, there is still some challeges with regards to the fact that some youth in the communities are still relactants in changing their mind set on how to deal with issues of witch craft. it means more sensitisation education is need in these communities

The general feeeling recorded from these communities visited were that they will support any bye-laws that are enacted by the local authorities and so Songtaba will be holding discussion with the

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Aug 21, 2017
The Journey Thus Far!

By Lamnatu Adam | project Leader

a visit to Mbo

Hello Readers!

It is yet another interesting moment as we update you on our work on ending violence against women accused of witchcraft. Songtaba is happy to report to its cherish donors that we have finally come to the end of the road as we have successfully re-integrated all the 20 women accused of witchcraft and banished to the kukuo camp and were profiled under this project and are living happily with their families. However the journey is not ended yet because many more women are still at the kukuo camp and also expressing interest to be re-integrated due to the success of the first 20 women. Therefore another 20 women have been profiled as next batch of women to be re-integrated.

As part of Songtaba strategies in ensuring that the women we re-integrated live comfortable life without any disturbance, we organize frequent visits to these women. This time around the Executive Director of Songtaba (Lamnatu) with the re-integration project management team visited all 20 re-integrated women to see how they are faring as well as monitor how they are making use of the livelihood grants that was given to them.

The team is happy to report that they are gradually expanding on their businesses and some diversifying their business to cover new things other than what they started with. Pagsana shared her story with us during our visit

Pagsana is my name and I lived in the Kukuo camp for over five years but before I was accused and send to the kukuo camp I was trading rice and onions. I go to buy them in large quantities and then retail in small quantities to individual buyers. Thankfully I am now reunited with my four children and supported to get back to my business again. I have been able to establish contact with my supplies who have agreed to do business with me again. I want to use this opportunity to thank all the people who made this possible

your wonderful donations are much appreciated

Visit to Damata

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May 19, 2017
Towards the End of the Road!

By Lamnatu Adam | project Leader

Ponando Pagsana

Songtaba is very excited to update you on our work on ending violence against women accused of witchcraft in the northern region of Ghana. Songtaba by the end of the quarter has recorded an additional 7 women who have been reintegrated to their home communities. With this the number of reintegrated women has increased from 12 last quarter to 18 out of the total number of profile women of 20 at the beginning of the project. After these women were sent home songtaba made several home visits and all of them were faring well with their family members. They all express happiness and joy for the opportunity giving to them to be with their families by support of your donation.

This quarter, we will concentrate our report on Ponado Pagsana a 60 years old from Pusuga about 30km away from the kukuo camp. She stayed in the camp for 20 years and was finally reintegrated on April 2017. She is currently living happily with her family and friends and had this to tell donors

When I look back to my days in the camp I felt like sharing tears because of what I went through. I never had any support from any one because I was perceived as a witch. It is only songtaba and other NGO who regulary visit us at the camp and provide us some basic needs including food and water as well medical care. For the past 20 years I never had the opportunity of seeing my family. After my reintegration I was supported with some money to establish a petty trading business. I told that all these were made possible by your kind donations.

Each of these women received different support after carefully analyzing the kind of livelihood they each wanted to do. Songtaba after doing cost benefit analysis gave some technical support in the area of resource management and how to track their profit.

Amidst these great and exciting achievement and progress that we have achieved, Songtaba is sorry to also report the passing on of Imoro Zeinabu, one of the alleged witche who was successfully reintegrated to puduya. She died out of a short sickness.

Thank you for your support and for reading. See you next quarter for more interesting and hart felt stories from Nanumba.

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