Webinar – Public Health and Witchcraft Beliefs

Thanks to those who were able to join us at the webinar on 17th June which looked to explore the understandings of public health conditions and ‘witchcraft’ beliefs. This is with a view to developing a toolkit that could help practitioners and communities demystify the common public health conditions considered as signs of ‘witchcraft’.

This is part of the wider work that WHRIN has been working on with Lancaster University and the UN Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights by persons with albinism, Ms. Ikponwosa Ero. It looks to implement some of the key recommendations from the 2017 Expert workshop on witchcraft and human rights, at the UN in Geneva. The report from which highlighted how widespread abuses of human rights across the world are due to harmful practices related to abuse of belief in witchcraft which are ‘fuelled by misbeliefs in supernatural powers and misconception of public health issues’.

The presentations from the webinar can be found below:

“Witchcraft” Beliefs and Public Health: An Overview – Gary Foxcroft, Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network

“Witchcraft” Beliefs and Mental Health: A Nigerian Perspective – Dr Olatunde Ayinde, University of Ibadan teaching Hospital, Nigeria 

We ask for them to be returned back by taking them to the sacred forest and make them disappear by burying them and make it secret’  – Sarah Snow, Medical Assistance Sierra Leone, and Mary Penn-Timity, Sierra Leone Autistic Society

Demystifying Dementia and Harmful practices of Witchcraft – Berrie Holzhausen, Alzheimers Dementia, Namibia

The recordings of the webinar can be found below:

https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/5be27e1f-447f-4412-ac11-e036c3c79947

https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/28e2c74e-845c-4c62-94b7-7898086b045a