2nd December: Committee for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights and Dignity of Women has been inaugurated at Nahawugu in the Gushegu District to help eliminate the banishing women for allegedly practising witchcraft. The committee, which comprises of chiefs, assembly members and opinion leaders, is to sensitise people in the communities on the need to respect the rights of especially women to ensure harmonious living. Read more here.
2nd December: The police arrested the three women three days after they declared themselves incarnations of goddesses Lakshmi, Parvati and Durga and inflicted physical punishment on six persons they had called ‘witches’ at a village in Majuli island in Assam. Read more here.
30th November: The uncle and mother of three teenage girls have been sentenced to 14 and 7 years in jail respectively, for raping and assaulting them in voodoo exorcism sessions. The man, a 28-year-old from Togo, claimed to have been ‘chasing out an evil spirit’ when he assaulted his niece and her two older sisters between 2010 and 2011. The victims’ mother, 41, was found guilty of complicity as she had even supplied the condoms used in the crime. Read more here.
30th November: Contrary to popular belief, widows and single women are not the only ones vulnerable to witch hunting. In fact, witch-hunting appeared to be a prevalent form of violence used to target middle aged women fully ensconced in their marital homes, according to a study. This indicates the need to think about witch-hunting also as a form of violence against women and be brought under the purview of Criminal Law Amendment Act, 2013. Studies suggest witch-hunting draws upon superstition and involves gendered targeting of women, is embedded in disputes, jealousies and tensions that fester between intimates and arises in contexts where affordable accessible quality health care and education are largely absent. Read more here.
29th November: The case of human sacrifice of one and a half year old Sharika has led to speculations of seeking hidden treasure in a forest in Sullia. Kemar Swamaji urges the case should be reopened and the matter taken very seriously due to a chain of recent unnatural deaths in the region. Read more here.
28th November: Khulekani Msindo (36) is facing two counts of murder after the bodies of his niece Nosiphiwa (3) and nephew Lindokuhle (9) were found buried in a shallow grave at their home in Madlankala last week. The police also found blood stains and traditional medicine in a clay drinking bowl (ukhamba) in the suspect’s room. Read more here.
28th November: The police rescued four persons, including two women, who were assaulted – tied up, taken to the prayer hall (‘namghar’) and beaten in order to confess practising witchcraft – in the world’s largest river island Majuli in Assam’s Jorhat district. Read more here.
28th November: At a time when the country is celebrating a 16-day campaign to end violence against women (VAW), a Dalit woman, who was displaced from her village after being charged with witchcraft by her own family members, struggles for justice. Read more here.
Blog post: The witchcraft business is thriving like never before in Mexico, as Internet marketing and media-savvy shamans hitch centuries-old tradition to modern commercialism. Read more here.
27th November: Three members of a family, two brothers and one brother’s wife, have been allegedly killed on the suspicion of practicing witchcraft and their bodies recovered in Assam’s Nagaon district. 20 villages were arrested. Read more here.
