Hundreds of people who are suspected of witchcraft in Ghana, especially elderly women, face rampant human rights violations, including murder, said on Monday Amnesty International, asking the government to criminalize allegations and ritual attacks.
In 2023, Ghana's Parliament adopted the bill that made it a criminal offense to declare, accuse or indicate any witch, but the bill will not yet be signed in the law.
“The charges that may lead to threats, physical attacks or even deaths usually start in a family or among the members of the community after a tragic event, such as illness or death,” ” said the amnesty.
“Elderly women who live in poverty, with health conditions and disabilities are more at risk, as well as women who do not correspond to stereotypical gender.
Most of the victims are “marginalized persons, especially the elderly,” in the northern and northeastern regions of the country, the report said.
Faith in witchcraft remains widespread in many rural settlements along the West African coast, including Ghana and other places of the continent. Earlier this year two people in Zambia were accused of the practice of witchcraft And possession of charm were to harm the president.
People who are accused of witchcraft are usually expelled from their native areas, and in Ghana they are looking for asylum in camps that run traditional priests, “where they remain until they die, or family member or other community accepts them,” the rights monitor reads.
Amnesty said Ghana did not do enough to protect the victims, emphasizing the need for a sensitization company in vulnerable areas.
It also states that the government was unable to “provide access to proper food, safe housing and clean water” for people living in these camps.
“Authorities should take legislation by specifically criminalizing the allegations of witchcraft and ceremonial attacks, including defense measures for potential victims,” said Geneyev Partndton, the director of the Amnesty country in Ghana.
Partangton is also a member of the coalition against the accusations of witchcraft, united after the 90-year-old woman in July 2020 in Northern Ghana.
Similar attacks occur in other parts of Africa.
Last year, eight women were charged with the death of two sick boys in Guinea bys were forced to drink poison and died.
Also last year, two women in the sixties were stones in the sixties, and their bodies were burned in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for allegedly the death of several people.
This is a reflection of how “we treat the elderly,” AFP said in Nigeria, founded in Nigeria of non-profit propaganda on alleged witches.
Samad Saib from Ghana Songtab's rights stated that “also nominated issues such as gender and poverty.”
Belief in witchcraft It is also common in some rural settlements in Angola, despite the strong opposition from the church in the predominantly Catholic former Portuguese colony. Last year police said About 50 people died In Angola, after they were forced to drink herbal medicine to prove that they are not the sorcerers.
During a trip to Angola's 2009. Pope Benedict urged Catholics to Tearful witchcraft and witchcraft.