End Human Rights Abuses Against Alleged Witches

Dear Readers

Songtaba extend a worm greetings to it cherish donors for their continue support towards ending violence against women accused of witchcraft in the northern region of Ghana. In our last update we reported on the initiative by Songtaba to engage the district assemblies and communities to explore workable solution that will help protect and provide safety for persons accused of witch craft and restore their dignity as well protect potential women of being accused.  It has been very successful as this initiative is receiving some positive response from the district assemblies and the communities.

During the period under review, Songtaba as part of our activities also engaged with the Camp priests and other key stakeholder with authority to make decision at the camp to dialogue with them to also support the call to stop some dehumanizing practices like trial by ordeal and also not to allow people bring the women and dump them at the camp. All four alleged witches camp priest were met and the outcome these meeting were encouraging as they agreed to perform the necessary rituals and ask that the woman be taken back home. The only difficulty they had was the trial by ordeal as they insisted that it is a long lasting tradition that has been bequeath to them as the only way to determine who possess witch craft.

They however indicated that, there is the need to end these acts which undermine the very integrity of these women and the kind of dehumanizing of torture and banishment and restore the dignity of these women by accepting them back to the community after they have gone through the cleansing ritual after all once we all believe in the ritual what is the fear of receiving them back? They asked.

In a meeting with the chief of kukuo where one of the camp is located had this to say;

 Issues of human rights abuses against person who have been accused of been witches are a source of worry to them. We don’t have any intention to keep the women at the camp any longer, currently we are in  continues talk with families to come and pick their women back home after they go through the purification process. Keeping them comes with a lot of challenges such as meeting their social needs like feeding them

He however complain that some of the communities are still feeling reluctant to accept these women which will eventually affects their efforts to send them home. In his view Songtaba have to do a lot of community level sensitization for them to accept these women back home.