Article on the annual Voodoo festival at Souvenance, a small village outside of Gonaives. Souvenance was formed by escaped and freed slaves from Dahomey (present day Benin) about two hundred years ago. During this week at Souvenance all of the Rada Iwa, or Voodoo spirits of Dahomey origin, are honored through different ceremonies, song and dance. Read more here.
A report carried out by experts, and stakeholders seeking to establish the ways in which a centuries-old system is invoked to stigmatise and punish women in contemporary India. Full report see here.
JAIPUR: It appears that the government machinery has no ways and means to curb incidents where women are killed, tortured or ostracized after a section of villagers brand them as “witches”. These incidents are unabated in the tribal districts of the state including -Rajsamand, Dungarpur, Udaipur, Pratapgarh and Sirohi. Full coverage here
A committee has been constituted to formulate the modalities for keeping tabs on those who exploit people in the name of astrology and witchcraft. More here
EASTERN Cape police have appointed three detectives to specialise in occult-related crime as part of a national drive by the SAPS to crack down on muti murders and other crimes that may occur during the practising of satanism, witchcraft and even vampirism. See here for more information.
Each year, thousands of children die worldwide and the childhoods and development of millions more are scarred by harmful practices perpetrated by parents, relatives, religious and community leaders and other adults.
The report illustrates a devastating failure of international and regional human rights mechanisms to provoke the necessary challenge to these practices and their effective prohibition and elimination in all regions. It marks a failure of political and community leadership to move parents, families and societies on from harmful practices
to cultures fully respectful of children’s rights. It marks a failure of religious leaders to insist that no form of violence against children can be justified in the name of religion and to highlight, as the Convention on the Rights of the Child does, children’s own right to freedom of religion.
This report builds on the key recommendations of the UN Secretary General’s Study. It identifies a range
of international, regional and national bodies that need to work urgently and more visibly to end adults’ inexcusable justification of inhumanity to children.
Please click here to see report
