Building a Global Response to Witch Hunts: Expert Panel from INAWARA

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello everyone, The thing about witch hunts welcomes you to our
Building a global response to witch Hunts expert panel.
We are so glad you chose to spend this time with us.
I'm Josh Hutchinson, Co founder of US based nonprofit in witch
hunts. Thank you all for joining us to
hear from the International Network Against Witchcraft
Accusations and Ritual Attacks on their important work

(00:23):
challenging witchcraft accusations that lead to
violence. Hello, I'm Sarah Jack, also a Co
founder of End Witch Hunts. Today you will learn about the
new report released June 2025 called LED Dissative Approaches
to Addressing Harmful Practices related to witchcraft
Accusations and Ritual Attacks. You will learn about efforts to

(00:44):
end literal witch hunts, the challenges faced by communities
worldwide, and the power of connecting experts,
practitioners, advocates, and survivors across borders to
create meaningful change. Hello, I'm Mary Bingham, Co
founder of End Witch Hunt. The three of us share a personal
connection to this work. We are all descendants of people

(01:06):
accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692.
Today, our panelists are Professor Charlotte Baker Co
Director of the International Network Against Witchcraft
Accusations and Ritual Attacks and a member of the UK National
Working Group on Spiritual and Ritual Abuse.

(01:26):
From 2015 to 2021, she worked with Ikpanwoza Arrow, former
independent expert on the rightspersons with albinism, and Gary
Foxcroft of the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network
to lead work to secure Resolution 478-ON the
elimination of harmful practicesrelated to accusations of

(01:47):
witchcraft and ritual attacks inJuly 2021.
Charlotte Baker is professor of French and critical disability
studies in the Department of Languages and Cultures at
Lancaster University, UK. Charlotte's research interests
focus on the representation of marginalized and stigmatized
groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Theories and representations of

(02:11):
disability. We also have Professor Marina
Forsythe, Professor and socio legal researcher at the School
of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian
National University and Directorof the International Network
Against Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks.
Her research focuses on legal pluralism, restorative justice,

(02:32):
crime and peace, with a particular emphasis on
Melanesia. Since 2013, she has LED a
research agenda on overcoming sorcery accusation related
violence in Papua New Guinea, contributing numerous articles
and resources to the field. And finally, Doctor Keith Silica
is a remarkable criminal investigator and lecturer whose

(02:54):
work bridges the worlds of criminology, forensics and human
rights advocacy. Morning Zimbabwe.
Dr. Silica grew up around traditional healing practices
through his father, who was botha healer and a devout Catholic.
His career has taken him from work with the Zimbabwe Republic
Police to law enforcement and academics in England, and he is

(03:17):
an expert in AI research. And Witch Hunts is a nonprofit
dedicated to educating the public about both historical and
contemporary witchcraft persecution.
We raise awareness about harmfulpractices related to accusations
of witchcraft and ritual attacksthrough public awareness
campaigns and podcast conversations with advocates,

(03:38):
academics, and leaders involved in the cause.
Org and pull that report. Before we hear from our
incredible panel of experts, let's understand what survivors
of witchcraft accusations face around the world.
Witchcraft. Accusations are still a major
problem, with devastating consequences for victims

(04:00):
including physical violence, social ostracization, economic
deprivation, psychological trauma and even death.
Harmful practices related to accusations of witchcraft are
cases when someone harms anotherperson whom they suspect has
bewitched them, their kin or their property.
Women, children, the elderly andpeople with disabilities are

(04:23):
disproportionately targeted. In 2021, the UN Human Rights
Council adopted Historic Resolution 47 slash 8 on the
elimination of harmful practicesrelated to accusations of
witchcraft and ritual attacks, the first resolution of its kind

(04:44):
calling for a holistic approach to addressing these violations
across the globe. This brings us to why we're here
today. Leaders from the global network,
the International Network Against Witchcraft Accusations
and Ritual Attacks in Uwara willshare how their organization
unites research, expertise and collaborators from around the

(05:08):
world to combat witchcraft accusations and ritual violence.
Now let's hear from our expert panelists.
Welcome Professor Charlotte Baker, Professor Miranda
Forsythe, and Doctor Keith Silica.
Please introduce yourselves and tell us your backgrounds.
I'm Professor Charlotte Baker. I'm based at Lancaster
University in the northwest of England, and my career is

(05:31):
focused on disability and particularly albinism, and
that's what brought me to this issue of harmful practices
associated with belief in witchcraft.
So thank you very much for having me here.
I'm delighted to be part of thispodcast.
I'm Miranda Forsyth and thank you so much for the opportunity

(05:52):
to be here. I am based at the Australian
National University and I've been working on the issue of
what we call sorcery, accusationrelated violence or salve in
Papua New Guinea since 2013 and I joined the International
Alliance since about 2017. Good morning.

(06:16):
Good evening everybody. My name is Doctor Keith Salika.
I'm based in Salford University.I was born in Zimbabwe where I
worked for the police there, andmy current research interest is
around artificial intelligence and witchcraft practices and I'm
currently writing a model graph on witchcraft practices in a
forensic context. Thank you.

(06:36):
What is the International Network against Witchcraft
Accusations and ritual Attacks? So the International Network
Against Witchcraft Accusations and Ritual Attacks, which we
call Inawara for short, was formed in 2022 in order to
connect the different groups andinitiatives that are working on
this issue around the globe. So after the resolution was

(06:59):
passed in 2021, we became aware that a lot more needed to be
done in order to mean that it was going to have a real impact
in practice. And that would involve seeking
to connect all of those different groups who are
working, often in quite isolatedways by themselves in different

(07:22):
countries, to connect them together so that they could
learn from each other, support each other.
And we did this following the ending of the previous
organization, which was the Witchcraft Human Rights
Information Network that has done so much fantastic work for
a number of years, but came to an end.

(07:44):
And so we've taken its place. The blog posts on our website
are one of the ways that we're seeking to connect people.
We're also doing advocacy, raising awareness.
And one of the ways that we're doing that is through a
photography exhibition that is being taken around to different

(08:04):
places to make people aware thatit's not just in one country,
that this is a global problem. We're seeking to share knowledge
as well about how this forms of harmful practice emerge in
different places, and also to gather and to share data about
the enormity of the problem really, because people are

(08:27):
generally not aware of how widespread and how systematic it
is. So we're working on a global
dashboard at the moment. What is the significance of the
report you released this June? Legislative approaches to
addressing harmful practices related to witchcraft
accusations and ritual attacks. And what have you discovered

(08:49):
about legislative approaches? OK, so I'm going to answer that
question as well. We started looking at
legislation, really because it'soften something that policy
makers and politicians discuss as a way of responding to the
problem of witch hunts or harmful practices related to
witchcraft. When there's a lot of pressure

(09:12):
on them to do something, you know, it's like, OK, then we can
enact some new laws. And we thought, OK, let's find
out how many countries actually have enacted specific
legislation to address the issue.
How many countries are really using just usual criminal laws
to prosecute the kinds of abusesthat occur in the name of

(09:35):
harmful practices and what impact of those laws actually
had on the phenomenon? So on a positive note, we found
that in fact, there's been 15 countries around the world that
have enacted specific legislation to address harmful
practices related to accusationsof witchcraft and ritual attack,

(09:55):
whereas most countries are usinggeneral criminal laws to
prosecute these harmful practices.
So murder, grievous bodily harm,arson, etcetera.
And we also found that some countries have enacted
legislation that is particularlytargeted at the activities of

(10:17):
individuals who create fear around witchcraft such as
diviners or those who exploit belief in witchcraft for
financial gain such as so-calledwitch doctors.
Generally those rules, we found those laws were having impact in
terms of, you know, the signalling message that they

(10:37):
were sending. We found that in general the
laws had not been actually used in practice to a great deal to
prosecute these harmful practices.
So what we've learnt from that really is that enactment of
legislation is not alone sufficient to address the

(10:58):
problem. We also found that it was quite
difficult to gather this information because courts and
the justice system and media as well often don't reference
belief in witchcraft as being a feature of the case.
And so it's difficult just through reading through case
decisions or looking at police reports to know whether or not a

(11:21):
particular case is related to a belief in witchcraft.
And we also found very distressingly that some
countries continue to treat a belief in witchcraft as a
mitigating factor in relation tothe Commission of criminal
offences. And so we'll give lighter
sentences in those cases. And in fact, some countries are

(11:43):
actively prosecuting so-called alleged witches through state
courts. So what we really concluded in
the report is that there needs to be much, there needs to be a
package that is built around anykind of legislative initiative
that helps to support victims and really also brings awareness

(12:07):
and education to those in the justice system who are
responsible for implementing it.This all requires both political
will and also adequate resourcing, which often are not
hacked around these legislative initiatives, unfortunately.
But unless you have that, then we don't think that legislation

(12:28):
alone is going to be the silver bullet that people often hope
that it is. It's such a wonderful report to
to use and look at. It's not only is the data so
significant, it's readable and shareable.
So I really encourage everybody to go to
theinternationalnetwork.org and pull that report up.

(12:52):
You can download it and use thatto help share what's happening.
What can you tell us about the United Nations Human Rights
Council Resolution 47 Eight adopted on July 12th, 2021 that
was titled Elimination of Harmful Practices Related to
Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks.

(13:16):
So I'm going to take that question.
So the resolution addresses the human rights violations that
Miranda mentioned that are rooted in accusations of
witchcraft and also the ritual attacks and harmful practices
that are linked to such accusations and beliefs.
So the resolution, the resolution calls for action.

(13:38):
It calls for States and for other stakeholders to take
measures to eliminate these harmful practices, to protect
the people who are vulnerable and to ensure accountability by
strengthening data, engaging with research and working
together with different stakeholders.

(13:59):
The resolution was tabled in response to the different
harmful practices that affect often the most vulnerable people
in society, women, children, older persons and persons with
disabilities. And the resolution makes clear
that the point isn't to ban belief in witchcraft, but

(14:20):
actually to target the practicesthat are harmful and that amount
to violations of fundamental human rights.
So the resolution is a landmark resolution in in many ways
because it placed the issue of witchcraft related accusations
and ritual attacks explicitly onthe agenda of the UN human

(14:43):
rights machinery. And it's just the beginning of
the journey. But it was an important point in
time that marks the recognition of this issue and its severity
at that international level. What next steps does the
resolution call for? So our aim with the resolution

(15:09):
was to address the issue at the highest level and as Miranda
said, we know there's a lot of grassroots work going on, but
the challenge now is to join everything up and I think that's
something that the resolution ispushing towards.
It includes some very clear nextsteps for governments, for UN
bodies and also for civil society.

(15:31):
It called most importantly for the protection of people who are
accused or those who are at riskfor those vulnerable groups.
It calls for the recognition of these human rights abuses as
crimes and therefore it calls onstates to investigate and to
prosecute and to end the impunity that has been the sort

(15:53):
of current state of affairs for many, many years.
It also emphasises the importance of stakeholders
working together and also of working with communities,
engaging with them to promote positive change where harm is
occurring. It asks governments and UN

(16:14):
agencies and researchers to worktogether to raise awareness of
this issue, to collect reliable data, which is really lacking at
the moment. And I think the report that
Miranda spoke about and the database are really positive
steps towards addressing that issue of data.

(16:35):
Also to identify the root causesand to train those who might
encounter this issue who are on the front line.
So we're thinking about police and social workers, legal
professionals, for example. And we're already beginning to
see the impact of the resolution.
We can see that some states are reviewing witchcraft laws, often

(16:58):
because they've used the resolution has been used to
encourage that action by membersof civil society.
And we've also heard calls for change from a range of different
stakeholders around the world. So the resolution is starting to
have an impact, but there's still a long way to go.

(17:21):
Thank you. The international network
collaborates with many partners around the world.
How does working together strengthen efforts to eliminate
harmful practices? Now I'll take this one.
Yeah, the network. By working with different
partners, it helps collaborationand helps bridge gaps between

(17:44):
local realities and global frameworks, something that
Miranda and Charlotte have already mentioned.
And also we try and make links with filmed Nanda damaged
organizations. For example, I'm very much in
touch with the African Albino Network.
Actually next year when I do my yearly charity runs, I'll
actually be doing some some fundraising for the African

(18:06):
Albino Network. And also by working with other
organization, we have a what call a unified advocacy because
networks such as in Iwana give smaller organizations
legitimacy, international spacesby using also the legislation
that's already available. In addition, collective advocacy
transformed fragmented efforts because as you can see based on

(18:29):
the report in based on our work,there's very much fragmented
efforts around how to address witchcraft practices in
different parts of the world using different legislation,
different approaches. So working with different
organization kind of bridges that gap in that context, if
that makes sense. Thank you.

(18:52):
It's really working to express the scale and urgency of witch
hunts. What are the most impactful ways
that individuals, organizations,or institutions can support in a
war's work? Who'd like to start?
Shall I go first? Yeah, you got alcohol.

(19:13):
From my way. Yeah, I'm sure Miranda and Keith
will all chip in. I think the most important thing
is talking about it is raising awareness of this issue even in
our own communities. And you know, I often have this
conversation here in the UK, I'minvited to go and give a talk
about witchcraft and people expect and sort of story focus

(19:34):
to it, which I give them. But then when I start to discuss
the contemporary issue and how it intersects with issues of
child abuse, for example, then people really become interested
and they really start to engage in the issue and realise that
this is part of the world that we live in and that this is
something that needs to be addressed.

(19:55):
So I think talking about it, educating people about it is
important. I also think that having the
network is really valuable. I think the way in which we
bring people together around thetable, and this is something
that your organization does really successfully as well.
And I think we need to work collaboratively on this.
We need to work together as muchas possible.

(20:16):
And I guess the final thing is to keep chipping away to, to
make an impact. So making sure that the
resolution actually makes a difference.
Because if we don't actively tryand make it do something, then
it just sits there and it won't make any change at all.
So I think they're the three things I would point to, but

(20:39):
Miranda or Keith, I don't know if you'd like to add anything.
Yeah, oh, did most of the thingsthat you just mentioned as well,
we need to amplify the awarenessand advocacy because so many
countries are still have witchcraft practices in their
laws and books. And also for me based on my
research to support capacity andtraining initiatives,
particularly safeguarding the individuals.

(21:00):
But as well know the witchcraft film, Hindoki highlighted the
gaps around safeguarding individuals or accused of
witchcraft. And also a secondary element
that I'm very much interested isthe forensic aspect in terms of
investigation and training on frontline individuals who come
across individuals who have beenaccused of witchcraft.
So that's where we come in. In some of the projects that me

(21:23):
and Charlotte will be working onin part of my monograph, in
addition to as Charlotte and Miranda mentioned, we've got the
legislation in certain countriesand we've got the UN resolution.
Most year resolutions around harmful practices such as say
Mass Grace also come with what we call protocols, investigation
protocols. So that's where we want

(21:43):
individuals like myself and others, we can join in to look
at investigation protocols around witchcraft and harmful
practices because they've got a double edged sword in terms of
prevention, detection and investigation.
Yeah. And maybe just the only thing to
to add to what my colleagues have said is in terms of

(22:06):
resources and support for, you know, the thing that we're
seeking to do in the network is they seed funding programs to
really try to channel small amounts of funding to
organisations that are doing amazing work, but who often are
so far below the radar that theydon't have access to, to, to

(22:28):
donors. And, and so additional support
in terms of, you know, we would love to have a couple of donors
that, that we can ask for regular support so we can do
that channelling work. At the moment we don't have any
and that does hamper the extent of work that we can do in that
regard. Now we will hear from each of

(22:49):
you individually about your advocacy focus.
Professor Charlotte Baker, please tell us about your
advocacy work. Thank you.
So I guess my advocacy is very much focused on the disabled
community and about raising awareness of this issue of
witchcraft related accusations and harmful practices.

(23:11):
And So what I've been really keen to do is make sure that
those participants are really front and centre in the advocacy
work that I've done, that they're not an afterthought,
that we don't pursue our own agendas and leave them behind as
it was. So I think it's really important
that when we do advocacy work, we work with our stakeholders

(23:32):
very much at the forefront of it.
And Professor Forsyth, thank youfor your advocacy.
Please tell us about your work in this area.
Thanks so much. So I would say that my advocacy
is very much entwined with my work as an academic in this
space. So I have that, you know, 2

(23:53):
pronged approach really. And I've been primarily focused
on Papua New Guinea where the issue of sorcery accusation
related violence really I think came to global attention in
2013. And that LED then a lot of
pressure on the government to todo something about the problem.

(24:16):
There was a national action planon SAV that was passed in 2015.
And so my research has really sought to follow that agenda to
see what kinds of changes were being made and to try to
document the cases and the typesof harm as well that were

(24:40):
arising around Papua New Guinea.Since that time, I think that
what we've really seen is both unfortunately arise, well
fortunately arise in awareness of the issue in Papua New
Guinea. Saab is now accepted as being
one of the most significant human rights problems facing the

(25:02):
country, along with gender basedviolence and intergroup fighting
as well. However, there's also has not
been a diminution in the number of cases and it seems that
actually it is on the rise in quite a number of of parts of
the country, particularly up in the Highlands.
And so my work has been to try to work with local research

(25:27):
organizations and also local activists to raise attention to
that. Particularly looking at the
moment, I'm focusing on the way in which sexual violence is part
of the kind of torture that occurs once somebody is accused
of witchcraft or sorcery in Papua New Guinea.

(25:51):
I'm also interested in looking at the ways in which elections
involve narratives of sorcery and how that feeds into sorcery
accusation related violence, butalso how these beliefs and
concepts of sorcery are used during elections in order to

(26:12):
cause fear and to embed particular understandings about
sorcery in ways that are really not at all helpful to our
agenda. I've also been working with some
fantastic local groups who have been developing a community
curriculum to to really address the problem from a prevention

(26:36):
perspective. There's a lot of work that's
done in terms of responding to these cases, but really what our
research has shown is that thereneeds to be a tremendous amount
more work done at that prevention level because that's
where you can really stop these cases from getting started in
the 1st place. And so the theory of change

(26:59):
behind this community curriculumis that in order to stop these
cases, you need to work within communities with trusted leaders
in that community to hold conversations with local
community members, to really cast doubt on whether or not
narratives of sorcery are credible.

(27:22):
Whether when a misfortune occurs, people should be
actually looking for alternativeexplanations as to what went
wrong rather than seeking to blame and to use violence.
And so we've had we, my colleague Anton Lutz, who I
think might have been on this program as well, he rolled out a

(27:43):
pilot of looking at that community curriculum, working
mostly with pastors in Anger Province earlier this year.
And I was fortunate enough to participate in some of those
sessions. And the initial results were
very promising. It's now being rolled out in
Simbu Province. And again, I'm just, you know,

(28:04):
walking alongside trying to document what impact this is
having and then sharing that with the rest of the world so
that we can all jointly contribute to thinking about
what can we do to really stop these cases from occurring in
the 1st place. OK, I've probably spoken too
much. I'm happy to ask answer any

(28:25):
further questions about that, but I'll hand over to, I suppose
to Keith. Yeah, Keith, that was great.
Thank you, Doctor Charlotte and Doctor Miranda and Keith, we
would love to hear about your advocacy.
Yes, as I mentioned, you know, in my previous podcast, my
advocacy is around forensics, safeguard and policing because
we have the legislation and we have idea of some numbers, we

(28:48):
have locations. So I want to go back to basics
using my policing breakground. I want to look at offender
characteristics. I want within the context of
Southern Africa witchcraft practices.
By the way, I want to look at offender practices, victim
practices, locations, patterns of behaviour because that will
inform counter what we call the investigation framework.

(29:09):
If we see this pattern of behaviour, we're going to look
at this area and we're going to use this legislation.
So I'll basically want to connect the dots.
So recently I've been, as I mentioned in my previous
contribution, I was, I've been commenting on this Zambian
witchcraft, crime, witchcraft trial that has been ongoing in
terms of legislation, particularly around the evidence

(29:30):
and also the objects that were used within that context and
also within my monograph. I'm also finding, as Miranda
mentioned, there's different approaches to resolving these
issues in Southern Africa, Malawi, Zambia and Zbabwe.
These opportunities around work called friendship benches where
local trained aunties can offer some sort of intervention, you

(29:51):
know, within local cultural context, based on a local
cultural issue. So my advocacy has around those
particular issues, mainly forensics, safeguarding,
investigation, prevention and other advocacy that can support
Charlotte and Miranda in. Thank you.

(30:11):
Thank you so much. Is there anything else that you
guys would like to share about what the network has done or
what you have coming up or anything we might not have
touched on today? And one thing we haven't
discussed is there are sort of bringing people together, I
guess in different ways. And Miranda mentioned the photo
exhibition. We've been involved in

(30:34):
supporting expert meetings. We've also held a couple of
conferences now and we're just at the stage of planning another
one next year. And I know that's something that
you you've participated in whichhas been brilliant, but these
are real opportunities to bring stakeholders together, to have
really difficult conversations sometimes.

(30:55):
Back at one of our early conferences, we spent three days
talking about terminology. That's what it came down to,
deciding whether we should use the word witchcraft or not.
We had interventions from peoplefrom all different backgrounds,
from the church, from Pagan organisations, academics from
different disciplines, members of civil society groups.

(31:16):
And that was a really productivediscussion because it was agreed
that we would go with the witchcraft word, even though it
was recognised that this isn't the term that's used
internationally. And Miranda's already mentioned
SAV, for example. So there are different terms in
use. But yeah, these conferences have

(31:37):
been really valuable, I think, in bringing people together in
different ways. Yeah.
And maybe so if I just elaborateon 2 initiatives that we've been
working on as well this year. The first one, as I mentioned,
was this global database as partof the advocacy work that we did
in 2019 in the lead up to the resolution.

(31:58):
Then we did research, online research mostly to try to find
where are these cases and how can we put some numbers around
them because that's often what policy makers listen to.
But we're conscious that we really need to update that.
And, and it would be fantastic to have an online portal where

(32:21):
people can see how many cases are occurring in different
countries around the world. You know, what is the form that
they take? What kind of characteristics do
their victims, typical victims have?
And who are the groups who are doing work in trying to address
that? So we are developing a global

(32:42):
dashboard. First of all, putting in all of
that information that we gathered back in 2019, which
was, you know, we found that there were 20,000 cases
globally. So there's a lot of a lot of
information that needs to go in.We've got some fantastic interns
working on that, but then setting up systems so that we

(33:03):
can include all of the new casesthat are reported online.
And ideally we would love to be able to set up a system whereby
different NGOs around the world or different organizations that
are gathering data are able to input their data into our system
so that we can jointly bring it together and show the enormity

(33:25):
of the problem. And that would really give a lot
of support to our advocacy efforts to have this as a very
serious human rights abuse, really given the the support
that it needs. The second thing that we've been
working on is developing a, a competition for an art
competition for schools because we want children to be aware

(33:50):
that, you know, that this issue exists.
Of course, it's a difficult issue to discuss with children
because it involves fairly horrific violence.
But we've really thought hard about that and thought about the
fact that what is often going onin these cases is the other
ring, the kind of scapegoating of particular individuals.

(34:13):
And that is a very, very familiar pattern even to school
children. And so raising awareness of the
way in which that occurs and theproblems that it leads to is
something that we thought we could do through our our
school's competition. So that also is is being
developed and we're hoping that that will be another way of

(34:36):
spreading awareness of the problem of this issue.
Thank you and thank you attendees for sharing this time
with us today. And please put your questions
and the chat and I'm sure that any of our wonderful people that
were here with us today will do their best to answer.
Thank you. Here we go, we have one.

(35:00):
This is great. Does Inawarra work with groups
on relief efforts? So there you would say that
there there are those in the network that that is their
advocacy is relief efforts. 100%, I would say that what we
do is we seek to support front liners who are doing that, who

(35:21):
are working in the sort of the care and response space, and we
do that through advocacy. As we mentioned earlier, we had
some seed funding earlier this year and we gave that to some of
those frontline agencies, but weare not providing direct support

(35:41):
ourselves to those and we would like to do a lot more of that.
But as also as I mentioned, we don't have any benefactors at
the moment. And so we're limited to the
extent that we can do it. Yeah, one of the before I go to
the next question, I just want to comment as a descendant of

(36:02):
women who were in court for witchcraft in the 17th century,
this global effort and campaign just really, you know, it's on
my mind every day, all that's happening on the ground and the
coming together. And I'm so grateful for In Arwa

(36:22):
because for us here in the US, it really helped us understand
the what we needed to collect for data.
And I feel like the network really helps us all be more
creative and recognize what we have in common, even though
there's so much context difference.

(36:43):
So here in the US, we've been tracking spiritual and ritual
abuse, often in the form of violent exorcisms against
vulnerable individuals. So I'm really thankful to the
network for how you bring us alltogether and how this data is
really going to build that bigger picture.
So what an incredible portal of information that would be when

(37:07):
that is able to come to fruition, we have a question.
Why, in this day and age, are people still being killed for
witchcraft? Yeah, I can ship it in the
context online and just briefly anyway, within the quantity of
Southern Africa, witchcraft practices persist because of

(37:27):
poverty. And that's the, for me, that's
the number one driving factor within the areas that I look at.
Because if you look at the places like Malawi, there's laws
of poverty, lack of education and lack of social amenities and
communities access to information or certain types of
information. So those areas, those kind of
conditions foster witchcraft practices around like all my

(37:52):
goals have not done well this season.
My son is not able to go to school or any kind of business
activities not going well or anything in life that can
attributed to things that are normally attributed in other
societies. And then they get dressed up as,
you know, witchcraft, and then that those conditions then

(38:12):
persist. I agree.
I think it's in the absence of healthcare provision, it's in
the in context, low income context.
In a sense, it's a can be seen as a kind of scapegoating as
people try to fill the gap that's left.
Some leaders may identify a witch to restore the social

(38:35):
order. So these killings, we know they
occur when there are weak legal systems, when you have strong
traditional or religious pressure, and also certain
circumstances within communitiesthat mean that people aren't
willing to stand up and to defend those who are being
accused. And yes, they happen when things

(38:56):
go wrong, when there's a sudden illness in the family or the
crops fail or community conflict.
Miranda mentioned election time.And certainly for people with
albinism, when they're attacked then election periods are times
of particular vulnerability. But I'm sure Miranda can add
some other examples from her ownexperience.

(39:20):
Yeah. I would also say that these
fears are often manipulated and exploited by individuals seeking
to obtain financial rewards or achieving certain kinds of
powers. And so these people take
different forms across the world.
As a general group, we call themspiritual entrepreneurs, and
they often use religious or traditional divination practices

(39:44):
to purport to identify which is all sorcerers, you know, or
financial reward. And this really intensifies the
amount of violence and the amount of fear.
So that's why, for example, in Papua New Guinea, there's been
legislation that has targeted these individuals who are called
Glass Man or Glass Mary to try to stop this.

(40:08):
Be a propagation. I think in Afro impacts of
Africa, it's more that takes on more of a religious dimension
with the pastors claiming to exercise children in particular.
And so holding these kind of individuals accountable is
really important. But as Charlotte said,
unfortunately impunity is generally the name of the day

(40:33):
and people think that they can get away with it.
Following up on the above or on that question, is the why
different in different areas arehow are reasons similar
globally? I mean, the extraordinary thing
that we found is how similar thepatterns are both across the

(40:55):
world and across history. You just see there is a
misfortune, then there is a a weak or vulnerable individual
and then that leads to an accusation which then builds up.
Sometimes that build up happens slowly, sometimes it happens
incredibly quickly. And so you've got the community
against an individual. That pattern is is very

(41:20):
prevalent and it happens at times of economic precarity,
uncertainty. People are looking for an
explanation and so they reach for one that gives a sense of
control and if you can identify an individual and take some
action against them, then it does provide that sense of
control. I should say that also in my

(41:44):
research in Papua New Guinea, there is a class of of case that
is slightly different to that interms of it's the more
economically successful who are being identified.
And you might have a person who's come in and to a different
province and set up a business and that business is doing very

(42:05):
well. Then they might also be the
target of accusation. Even though you wouldn't say,
oh, that person is vulnerable because they are doing better
than other people around them. Then that creates jealousy.
And jealousy is also a driver ofof accusation because people are
seeking again to understand, well, why are they succeeding
and I'm not succeeding. And we have a comment from

(42:29):
Carolyn Gent at Stop Child Witchcraft Accusations
Coalition, how much they've really valued working with
Miranda and her colleagues at ANU to write up research on
children's views and experience.And you did touch on how
difficult this can be, but we have talked to Carolyn on the
podcast before, and it is reallyamazing the work that is being

(42:52):
done around children witchcraft accusations.
Does anybody want to say any more on that?
I might just elaborate on that. And I think that Carolyn has
pointed out this really great potential in the network because
we are often connected with manyacademics and NGOs are often

(43:13):
gathering data that they want todo something with.
And so this was an opportunity that I had to work with Carolyn
and her fantastic team at Stop Child Witch Accusations, where
they had gathered data trying tounderstand how the children
think about witchcraft accusations and the nature of

(43:34):
witchcraft so that they could then use those understandings
and feed them into curriculum and advocacy programs that
they're developing. So that was just such a great
opportunity for both of us. What we found really was that
children are both very obviously, they inhabit a world

(43:55):
in many countries in which witchcraft is real.
But they were also very aware ofthe fact that witchcraft
accusations were used in very deliberate ways and that they
didn't always stemmed from a belief that the particular
person accused was a witch, but that it was a way of of
controlling people, a way of seeking revenge on people and a

(44:19):
really problematic practice as well.
So that was I think a really encouraging because it helped us
to understand how we could develop or how sub child
accusations could develop programs to to really make
children think a lot more critically about the kinds of
accusations that they were hearing.

(44:41):
Yeah, that that's very true. As you know, like in Nigeria,
Leo equate 1 of individuals thatwe've been much in contact with.
He runs a lot of seminars on critical thinking skills for
children. So that's quite important.
In addition, for example, in my own work there, there is for
example, at my university, we have a visual relationship with
which I discovered recently withuniversities in Uganda whereby

(45:04):
they teach children who have been victims of cuts.
We need prosthetics. So they, we, they hold virtual
workshop to outline what's a prosthetic, what's happened.
So I'm trying to tap into that to look into witchcraft
investigation, to use the same facilities to teach young
children. And also I'll try any

(45:24):
investigators in that around investigating and harmful
practices and locations and crime scenes and things like
that. So that's another kind of area
of advocacy that I'll be lookingat as well.
And. One of the things that that we
really are seeking to do and just picking up on the what
Keith was saying about friendship benches and the

(45:45):
community curriculum, we find that there are different
experiments that are happening across the world to really think
how can we address this, particularly from a prevention
perspective. And yet there hasn't been a lot
of of research done into the impact of those different
interventions. So we often don't know which

(46:05):
ones are working in which contexts, why are they working?
How can they be replicated safely in other contexts?
And so that is again, another big area of work that we would
really like to pursue. We're doing that in a, in a
small way through encouraging different organizations to write

(46:27):
blog posts to share just in those little bite sized pieces,
the kinds of work that they're doing so that others are at
least aware of those and can follow up with them to get more
information. But but we are hoping to be able
to do much more of a kind of a scoping study to look at what,
what interventions do have an impact and why.

(46:51):
So if anybody who is listening to this podcast has actually
been involved in doing any very impactful interventions, please
do get in touch with us so that we can we can write about it and
we can hopefully investigate a little bit further.
Thank you so much. Is there any, is there anything

(47:13):
else the international network would like to share today or?
I think there was a really greatquestion in the chat actually,
and that's about witchcraft accusation.
But in the global North, becausewe often tend to think that this
is a global S issue. I live in a part of England
where actually the rates of abuse linked to faith and belief

(47:36):
are very, very high out of line with other parts of the country.
And there are various reasons for that.
But the question in the chat is from one of our colleagues who
lives in Madeira and asks, shouldn't we also be addressing
the issue of passing down of magical thinking from generation
to generation? That's something certainly that

(47:57):
I've been thinking about around superstition and the, you know,
where do we draw the line between people going down to the
local seaside here and going to speak to healers or going to
speak to someone who'll cross, you know, they'll cross
someone's palm with silver and be told their fortune.
Where is the line? And I think that's a really

(48:18):
important question and links back to this question of belief
and whether we need to tackle the belief systems or whether we
just tackled the harmful consequences.
And that's a very hot topic at the moment.
We don't have a decision on that.
I think as an organization we haven't decided our stance on
that yet. But certainly in the resolution

(48:40):
says that we shouldn't be questioning people's beliefs.
People are entitled to believe they wish, but where that leads
to harm, that's where we really need to intervene.
We also had a question in the chat about the availability of
the data. Miranda, is that data that
you're recording, is that available?

(49:03):
No. So it's not available in the
form of a global dashboard as yet.
We're, we're slowly doing that, working with very dedicated
interns, but hopefully in the next couple of months then
certainly our historic data willbecome available and then we'll
look to updating it. I should also say this issue of

(49:26):
intergenerational transfer of belief, there's also
intergenerational transfer of victimhood, unfortunately.
And so we often find that children of those who have been
accused of of witchcraft or sorcery are themselves
stigmatized and that can then lead to to violence as well.

(49:47):
It cutting off those intergenerational transfers is
really, really important, which again is why working with
children I think is so critical.Yeah, I particularly support
that statement as somebody who was father was around and often
accused of witchcraft practices and all for family members and

(50:10):
ATC. So to break that cycle is very,
very difficult. So that's why I resonate with
the aspects around education around you.
I've seen in my own children, I've seen in my own growing up.
So breaking that cycle will be absolutely important that.
So that's a very, very good point, Miranda.
I also see Peter Minter from Total Life Enhancement Center in

(50:33):
Ghana. He, of course, supports these
multiple generational families in refugee camps.
He's been the recipient of one of your project grants and he's
here and expressing his appreciation for the network.
Yeah, it's people like Peter that we really exist to support,

(50:55):
you know, extraordinary, the work that they're doing day in,
day out, you know him. But then also so many people
around the world are risking their own lives on a really
regular basis. Often people say to me, Miranda,
you know, why do you do this? Because it is so horrific.
The sorts of violence that we learn about are just unthinkable

(51:18):
in many cases. Why do this?
But it's because of people like Peter that I get so much
encouragement to think, well, you know, if they're doing it,
then actually what I'm doing is,is not nearly as significant a
personal contribution as as him.And so many I know in Papua New

(51:39):
Guinea who are just people who have very little, who still take
survivors into their houses, whotreat them as if they're family
members, who put their own livesin danger by saying to the
community, Now I'm caring for these people because they're
human beings who have been hurt,who have been tortured.
And, and I'm sharing my humanity.

(52:00):
Often they're motivated by a sense of belief in God.
And I am very inspired by that kind of behaviour and.
And I would just like to add, ifit wasn't sure, people like you
who have inspired me personally to really take a look at how
this is still going on in the United States today.

(52:22):
And because of your work, it's been an inspiration, well, not
only to me, but to my other, youknow, my other board members,
our other board members at End Witch Hunts that we've been able
to see how it does and how it does affect us still today.
That it didn't end in 1692 for us.

(52:42):
And now to raise awareness in the United States, not only for
our own country, but for everybody else too, globally.
So thank you very much for that.Thanks, Barry.
We have one more moment to address 1 other level of this
complexity. Naveen here who is a research

(53:05):
scholar from India and anti superstitious law.
He says regarding how to combat witchcraft practices alone when
these practices are also connected with other religious
beliefs. Should we also address other
connected practices in the rootsof superstitious practices?

(53:27):
So this is something that I've been involved in over the last
four to five years with a particular focus on disability,
but it's addressing the whole spectrum of beliefs or what
we've called alternative explanations because many of
these intersect and many of themare held simultaneously.
So someone may be a well educated person, they may well
understand that their child has a genetic condition.

(53:50):
They will still take them to church to be healed.
They'll still take them to the traditional healer or even a
witch doctor to because they're exploring every opportunity in a
context where there are very fewopportunities to to really find
a solution. So I think it's important that
we do think about this issue in the wider context and how it

(54:11):
intersects with other beliefs and belief systems.
Absolutely. Thank you to our incredible
panelists for sharing the powerful impact you're creating
through your organization. What we've heard today
reinforces why organizations around the world are coming
together to address witchcraft accusations and create change.

(54:36):
When you're ready to learn more and support this work, please do
not hesitate to reach out to either us at In Witch Hunts or
to Inawara. You can find
educationalresources@internationalnetwork.orgfeaturing the work of today's
panelist organizations alongsideresearch reports and articles
from advocates and experts worldwide at and which has non

(55:00):
profit our vision as a world without witch hunts, where
victims and their families receive justice, acknowledgement
and support. You can find our podcast,
research, and ways to get involved at End Witch hunts.org.
Together, we can create a world without these violations of
human dignity. Thank you for joining us today.

(55:23):
Please keep this conversation growing by sharing what you
learned with others.

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