Urgent action needed to end harmful witchcraft-related beliefs and practices

PHIL YA NANGOLOH WRITES:

In a recent speech the Inspector General of the Namibian Police spoke on the subject of the need to curb the mushrooming of occultist and or witchcraft-related beliefs and practices in the country.

There is really an urgent need to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish the perpetrators of harmful witchcraft-related beliefs and practices in Namibia.

Like in Namibia, in numerous countries around the world, harmful witchcraft-related beliefs and practices have resulted in very serious violations of human rights. These violations include beatings, banishment, cutting of body parts and amputation of limbs, human trafficking, torture and murder.

Women, children, the elderly, and people with disabilities (particularly people with albinism) are particularly falling prey to such violations.

However, despite the seriousness of these violations, there is often no vigorous state-led action against them. Often judicial systems do not decisively act to prevent, investigate, prosecute and punish human rights abuses linked to witchcraft-related beliefs and practices.

This structural failure encourages and perpetuates impunity.

Witchcraft is defined as a deeply rooted reality engrained in societies, where said reality serves as a system of explanation as well as of exploitation of misfortune and is fuelled by misbeliefs in supernatural powers and misconceptions about public health issues. Witchcraft is a global phenomenon that is part of a wider system of oppression which amounts to a criminal enterprise.

Harmful witchcraft-related beliefs and practices constitute real and imminent threats to public order, public safety, public health and or morals, national security and the basic human rights and fundamental freedoms of victims of such practices.

Women, the elderly, children and people with disabilities, who are accused of witchcraft, suffer the most cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment which strips them of all their dignity.

They are mostly the victims of mob justice characterized by stoning, the forced administration of poisonous substances, flogging, and burying people alive. Victims have also been burned alive after having been tied and bound. In other cases victims are forced to pay fines in the form of money, cattle or their agricultural produce. Others whose lives are spared are subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention.



INTERNATIONAL ACTION

Between September 21 and 22, 2017 the international community held in Geneva a ground-breaking workshop in which over 100 UN and other international experts participated. The workshop identified a series of effective ways to curb and stop human rights violations caused by a “disturbing diversity of harmful practices” related to witchcraft.

Concrete measures that were identified include strengthening research and data collection, reviewing relevant laws, collaborating with, and monitoring the work of traditional healers, prohibiting newspaper advertisements of witchcraft practitioners, and regulating independent faith-based practices.

The international experts recommended that all measures being adopted must reflect a human rights approach and should be comprehensive, with governments working closely with communities and civil society. The international experts called for an approach combining legislative, administrative, judicial and other action to be instituted with improvements in child protection, education, health, justice, social protection, economic and livelihood measures, and gender equality and empowerment with the strong involvement of traditional healers, faith leaders, and groups vulnerable to such attacks.

The workshop helped to identify potential solutions to prevent and address human rights violations which are still committed on a daily basis throughout the world.

(The remainder of this letter will be pulished in tomorrow's edition. - Editor)