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Momodou
Denmark
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 Posted - 16 Nov 2009 : 20:44:13
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Rights Group Condemn Witch Hunts in Gambia, Africa
By Alieu
Another rights group, the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) has condemned what it described as state-sponsored witch-hunts and human rights abuses in Africa describing it as gross human violations that are committed in the name of witch hunts. In his statement at the ongoing 46th session of the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, Mr. Leolgwe said IHEU has received reports of witchcraft-related human rights abuses in many countries across the region including the Gambia, where government agents and some witch doctors from Guinea raided villages and homes, abducted hundreds of mainly elderly persons alleged to be witches and wizards, took them to some secret locations where they were tortured and forced to drink magical concoctions.
It also alleges that some of those abducted died after taking the magical substance, while others developed severe health complications. “This state-sponsored witch-hunt is in breach of Gambia’s human rights obligations under the African Charter”, the group lamented, noting that in Africa, the belief in witchcraft is strong, common and widespread. According to Mr. Leolgwe, over the years claims of witchcraft have been used to abuse the universally recognized human rights enshrined in the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights. In many African countries according to him, to call somebody a witch automatically makes the person unqualified for human rights protection. “To accuse somebody of witchcraft is like passing a death sentence on that person. Those accused of witchcraft are tortured, persecuted and killed. They are subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by gangs, mobs, pastors, and witch doctors, parents and family members in the name of exorcism or to elicit confessions.
Those alleged to be witches and wizards are victims of jungle justice, extra judicial killing, forced exile and disappearance”, while driving the point home that in Africa, those abused in the name of witchcraft are mainly the vulnerable members of the population – the poor, the elderly, women, children and people with disabilities. IHEU calls on the governments of the Gambia, Nigeria, Malawi, Kenya, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Sierra Leone, and Liberia to fulfill their commitments under the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights by improving the quality of education, law enforcement and the justice system, and urges all state parties to take all necessary legal and administrative measures to combat all human rights abuses that are committed in the name of witch hunts.
Meanwhile, he said the United Nation’s General Assembly’s Human Rights Council has also condemned the witch hunts and human rights abuses by the above mentioned countries urging them to respect and be fully committed to the protection and promotion of human rights issues in their various countries and improved education and policing to eliminate the twin scourges of those practicing witchcraft and those claiming to find and ‘cure’ witches. He further noted that in Malawi, a Magistrates’ Court has convicted two people for practicing witchcraft. In October, Emily (62) and James Kunjes (68) were sentenced to five years imprisonment with hard labour for killing two members of their community through magic, while in Kenya, at least 15 women suspected to be witches were killed last year in a deadly witch-hunt that occurred in some parts of the country. Relatives of those alleged to be witches and wizards continue to live in fear.
He also told the gathering that in the Democratic Republic of Congo, thousands of children alleged to be witches and wizards have been driven out of their homes and forced to roam the streets. And in Nigeria, in Cross River and Akwa Ibom States, children accused of witchcraft are abandoned, beaten, slashed with knives, bathed with acid or lynched by parents, family and community members. Some of those so-called child witches are chained and starved; some have been tortured to death by unscrupulous pastors during deliverance ceremonies. Also, human rights activists working to defend the rights of those accused of witchcraft have been at risk as they have suffered attacks, threats, intimidation and harassment: “In July, agents of self-proclaimed witch-exorcist and founder of the Liberty Gospel Church, Helen Ukpabio, raided a centre for the rehabilitation of child victims in Eket in Akwa, Ibom State, attacked the organizers of a child rights conference in Calabar, Cross River State”. In Ghana, women accused of witchcraft are attacked, persecuted and killed.
Some of them fleeing persecution have taken refuge at a camp in Gambaga in the Northern Region and those alleged to be witches and wizards suffer similar fates in Angola, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Liberia, etc. The witch-hunts in many African countries are not isolated attacks but an organized campaign, a silent and systematic elimination of anybody alleged to be a witch or a wizard, he stated. IHEU therefore calls on the Commission to issue a resolution condemning witch hunts and witchcraft-related human rights abuses in Africa and requests the Special Rapporteurs on the Rights of Women in Africa, on Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Internally displaced Persons in Africa, Human Rights Defenders in Africa to raise issues concerning witchcraft abuses with state parties during their promotional missions.
Source: Daily News
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