Ghana's Outcast Camps: A Conversation with the Coalition Against Witchcraft Accusations

Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Welcome to the thing about witchhunts.
I'm Josh Hutchinson. And I'm Sarah Jack.
Today's episode is very special.On August 10th, we observed
World Day Against Witch Hunts with a live event featuring an
expert panel discussion on modern witch hunts with a focus
on the outcast camps of Ghana. Hello everybody, and welcome to

(00:28):
our World Day Against Witch Hunts expert panel.
Thank you so much for being hereeveryone, all the panelists as
well as the attendees. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
I'm the Co founder of the End witch Hunts nonprofit out of the
United States. Hi, I'm Sarah Jack.
I'm also a Co founder of the nonprofit End Witch Hunts and we

(00:51):
are honored that all of you havejoined us today to learn about
the experiences of survivors andthose working to support them.
And I'm Mary Bingham, Co founderof Endwichments.
The three of us share personal connection to this work.
We are all descendants of peopleaccused of witchcraft in Salem
of 1692. And today, our expert panelists

(01:15):
are Belinda Araki. Belinda is the Campaigns and
Communication Coordinator for Amnesty International of Ghana.
We appreciate her coming. Genevieve Partington is the
country director for Amnesty International Ghana.
Thank you. Lamnatu Adam is executive

(01:36):
director of Songtaba. John Kanan is the country
director of Action Aid Ghana. Peter Minter Amadu is executive
director and psychologist at Total Life Enhancement Center in
Ghana, and John Azuma, PhD, is the executive director of the
Sauna Institute. Thank you all for coming.

(01:58):
And Witch Hunts is a nonprofit dedicated to educating the
public about both historical andcontemporary witchcraft
persecution. We raise awareness about harmful
practices related to accusationsof witchcraft and sorcery and
ritual tax through public awareness campaigns.
Our podcast conversations with advocates, academics and leaders

(02:20):
involved in the cause. Before we hear from our
incredible panel of experts, let's understand what survivors
of witchcraft accusations face around the world.
Witchcraft accusations are stilla major problem, with
devastating consequences for victims, including physical
violence, social ostracization, economic deprivation,

(02:44):
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 can or their property.
Women, children, the elderly andpeople with disabilities are
disproportionately targeted. In 2021, the UN Human Rights

(03:08):
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
calling for a holistic approach to addressing these violations
across the globe. This brings us to why we're here

(03:30):
today. World Day Against Witch Hunts is
observed every August 10th. Started by Missio in 2020, the
day serves to draw attention to the global crisis of harmful
practices related to accusationsof witchcraft and ritual
attacks. Now let's hear from our expert
panelists who work directly withsurvivors in Ghana and are

(03:53):
creating real change. Panelists, when you begin to
share, can you state your name for everyone in attendance?
The first question is for the Amnesty panel.
Can you tell us about Amnesty International Ghana and what led
you to launch this Branded for Life research project?

(04:13):
Hi, thank you very much for the wonderful introduction that you
did. I appreciate the work that has
gone into this. So my name is Belinda Adiki
Asamano. I'm the campaigns and
communications coordinator for Amnesty International.
So yes, Amnesty International isa global movement of more than
10 million people. Our headquarters is in the

(04:35):
United Kingdom, in London, wherewe have been working to champion
the rights of people all over the world.
Amnesty International is the leading human rights
organisations in the world and we are in over 176 countries
worldwide. In Africa, we have our regional
head office for West Africa based in Tenegal and then we

(04:56):
have another regional head office in Kenya.
So in Ghana, we are a part of the Western region side of
Amnesty International, the West African region.
So in Ghana we have been doing alot of work on witchcraft
accusations this campaign. Let me start now.
It started in fact a lot of years ago.
In fact, if I should say in Amnesty International Ghana, we

(05:19):
are already. 52 years. So Amnesty International Ghana
was founded somewhere in 1973. So you could tell you could you,
you should know the like it tells you like the work that
Amnesty internationally has donein Ghana all over these 52
years. And obviously the witchcraft
accusations campaign, the anti witchcraft accusations campaign

(05:40):
has been largely part of the onethat we do at Amnesty
International Ghana. We are looking at criminalizing
witchcraft accusations in Ghana.And then in the long run we are
also looking at the protection of women who especially elderly
women who are accused of witchcraft in Ghana.
Now to why we actually decided to launch a report or research

(06:03):
project on their witchcraft accusations.
We named it the Branded for Life.
Over the years, in fact, AmnestyInternational has been
campaigning against witchcraft accusations in Ghana.
We have been doing this for morethan 20 years.
But what's trying us to, to takeour time and then re strategize
on the campaign that we're running was when Madame

(06:27):
acquired. And today, I can't say was it an
old woman who was lynched in Kafaba in in the northern
regions of Ghana, where two young ladies accused her of
being a witch. And the reason was that she was
not letting their lives prosper or something of that sort.
And it became a real national issue where these two women

(06:50):
brought her to the town square and then lynched her and beat
her to death. In fact, she was actually
dragged from her home all the way through the streets and
brought to the town square. People got that and then these
two women and I think there werethere other people that also
supported with the beating. I believe once on Taba is here,

(07:11):
you can give us more details into what actually happened
because they actually in northern side of Ghana, these
women actually beat her, lynch her so bad she lost her life and
it really became an issue of concern in Ghana.
And then Amnesty International had to really sit down and re
strategize on how best we can save these older women who are

(07:34):
accused of witchcraft. So when it happened like that,
Amnesty International decided tosit with our stakeholders like
Santaba here we have Action Aid as well.
They came in, we spoke to Honourable Francis Zervis Sue as
well. At that time, I believe he was
already working with Action Aid and Santaba on the Criminal

(07:54):
Offences Act to criminalize the witchcraft accusation.
So there was a bill that was already in the process and I
think Action Aid really did a lot of great work on that bill.
I remember when we went to Kafiri Dry, Kafiri Dry is say in
the capital of one of our regions in Ghana with a Central
Parliamentary and Legal Affairs committee.
We had to actually sit down and then look at the the draft bill

(08:18):
that we wanted to propose to Parliament to criminalize
witchcraft accusation. And the criminalization was not
just about just giving them likepenalty and sentence, but to us
and also look at the broader perspective of the people that
actually coughing the abuses. For instance, we're looking at
like women, like families, they're accused.

(08:40):
We're also looking at like the witch doctors that were in some
of these communities because it stemmed from like some witch
doctors saying that they have some women going to witch
doctors thinking that the witch doctors have told them that this
person is actually delaying their alliance in Ghana and
other things. So it the penalty actually
prayed to all these categories of people who are likely to

(09:02):
accuse people of witches. Even pastors were part this
proposed bill. So it was really a lot of when
that Amnesty International decided to, you know, partner
with our stakeholders. And then the good news was that
we actually had time to visit these camps.
And then look, take a take time to have the first hand knowledge
or first hand view of what is actually happening in the camps

(09:27):
and to listen to the women for them to tell us their stories
first hand so that we document it and then give a
recommendation to the governmentof Ghana.
So that's actually what came about that made Amnesty
International really put in a lot of effort in developing a
branded for life research project.
Thank you. Thank you, Belinda, that was

(09:48):
really wonderful. We would really love to
understand more about them as individuals.
You know, these are women or children with names and lives.
And you started this research project.
You go to the camp where they'resurviving.
How did you build trust with them and how did they share

(10:09):
their stories with you? What was that like?
OK. Thank you very much.
I'm very happy you mentioned theissue of trust because it was
very important for us to to havethem understand the word that
Amnesty International is doing in Ghana.
So even before we went to the camps to to embark on the
projects, we actually spoke to our partners because our

(10:32):
partners, for instance, on Taba,they really supported us in this
project. They understand the language of
the women. We didn't know the northern
languages by obviously some of them understood English and a
little bit of the local dialectic history.
However, in order to build a trust effort for them to tell us
their stories, we partnered withsome Taba and then they were

(10:53):
like a support to us. They spoke to the women and all
the leadership of the council tounderstand that Amnesty
International has been in existence for some time.
We are credible organizations and then their stories, when
they tell us their stories is they are able to have the
documented reports from Amnesty International and they share
with them as well. We were also able to speak with

(11:15):
the leadership of the camps as well as the chief of the
community because it's very important, you know, a project
management we take community entry is like a very important
part of our way. So with all these rounds that we
had done, it was easier for us to go to the camps and then
speak with the women. And trust me, when we go to the
camp they hosted and beautifullythey had a especially in the

(11:37):
Gambaga camp, the we're actuallybeing seated waiting for us
singing and sharing. They have a very wonderful
chance that they they sing when they visit people.
So it was very easy. And then our researchers were
also very experienced. So we made it clear to their
women that in order for them to tell us their story, this is
actually what we are using theirstories for.

(11:59):
And this is how we are going to document their stories and due
the truth that it was very easy for the women to talk to us.
In fact, there was a point that some of the women even after
talking to them, we still earnedthem.
Do you really want to Share yourstory?
If they said no, then we do not share their story.
But to be told, we actually had great number of women sharing

(12:21):
their stories which really helped us in documenting our
Branded for life reports. Thank you.
The stories that you're talking about, of the women that they
had, these stories that sparks these accusations, what
surprised you most about their experiences and how did
listening to their voices help you to understand what was

(12:44):
really going on? What?
Thank you so much. So what's really surprised us
during the recently fund for me,it was the fun that most of
these accusations were done by women.
And it's so sad to to know that because like a lot of the women
that rushed to the camps to seekrefuge and to seek comfort.

(13:08):
Most of them in a way they were either accused by some family
member who is like a female. They were accused by like most
of them especially like their Cowives, you know like it's a
Muslim community at that time orlet's say a northern community
where people are allowed to be men, are allowed to marry like

(13:28):
2-3 or four wives. Some of them were accused by
Niger cool ones who accused themof maybe killing their children
or their sons or trying to kill them in dreams.
And in fact, one of the surprising part was like people
who had like dreams. Some women just dream and then
they just assume that this person was to kill them and then
they just brand them a witch andthen they just find themselves

(13:49):
running to the comfort rescue. So these are some of the things
that really surprised us about the stories that the women told
us. Yes.
Thank you so much. Let's talk about some stories of
hope. What keeps these women going
despite everything that they've lost?
Speaking with the women, one of the some of the women, what they

(14:10):
told us was that the fact that they are able to get a shelter
at these camps, the fact that they are able to also get food
and the fact that they are able to get water as because these
are very basic necessities for human life.
And then for them getting the shelter, getting the livelihood

(14:30):
is actually something that they really cherish because back home
we're not fed well. And then some of them because of
the way they were the accusers happy, they had to like rush
somewhere to seek shelter and to, to surprise you, some of
them actually had to walk like about 1020 kilometers, if I'm

(14:54):
exaggerating, just to come to the camps, because from their
community to the camp is very far and they may not even have
enough money for transport. So like they had to like walk
all the way to the camps, go to the chiefs of the communities
and, and bend them to help them so that they can have their
livelihood. So for me, I say what keeps them
going is the father. They had the shelter, they had

(15:16):
the food, they had water, and atleast they had a sound mind to
some extent. Because obviously if you are
accused of witchcraft, there's no like 100% sound mind because
it's a very sad thing. But the fact that they met women
who also shared similar stories of witchcraft's accusations,
they share their stories together and they find that they

(15:37):
are able to comfort each other at this times is actually what
really kept them going. What kind of change for the
people in these camps can come from this research and from
what's being learned about theirexperience?
So when it comes to the kind of change that we can get from

(15:59):
these camps, let me just surprise you because when we
spoke to the women, especially about they moving back home,
most of them did not want to go back home.
They preferred staying in the camps because in the camps
nobody accuses them of being witches.
And then most of them in the camps, they are, at least they

(16:19):
have especially now. Let me explain to you in the
Gambanga camp, it's a well structured community.
Now in the gambanger camp, it's like almost every woman has
their own heart. So in their hearts, they have
everything that they need in their hearts.
Now if they should go back home,probably they may not even have
their hearts to themselves. They may be asked to sleep

(16:41):
outside or somewhere. Or it's even surprising that
even their own family members may not want to receive anymore
when it comes to these changes. Most of them really want us
living the count. But one they want to see whether
in terms of change is like maybegood feeding for them, enough
health insurance that will caterfor the ailment.
Because most of them are old. So some of them may need

(17:03):
surgeries for some other ailments, Others may need
extensive medical care where National Health insurance may
not be able to cover because I understand the health insurance
covers malaria and then headaches and their stomach
aches. It doesn't cover like the
critical ailment that the women may have.
So when it comes to change, we may talk about maybe the

(17:26):
government is giving the women special care when it comes to
their health. And then secondly to I think
that in terms of change, we should have a well coordinated
awareness campaign, honestly speaking, because for me that is
like one of the things that really speaks to me because if
we have this awareness campaign on challenging cultural and
societal practices, discrimination against these

(17:47):
women will reduce drastically. So if you look at our
recommendation in Amnesty International's Branded for Life
report, that's recommendation atthe page 61.
We've mentioned two different sets of recommendation.
We have the preventive measures recommendations, as well as the
justice and reparation separation changes part.
So these are some of the changesthat we are looking at.

(18:09):
And obviously they have a program called the Livelihood
Empowerment Against Poverty Program.
And this program is actually, it's like some kind of funds
allocated to these women to support their daily lives.
So the government gives them, for instance, if it's like a
woman who has like an elderly woman, I think it's about 182

(18:29):
cities or 150 cities per month, which is roughly inadequate
because that's like less than $10.00 for the whole month to
spend on. So if we are looking at changes,
then the government should really rather come in and
increase this funding for the women so that they can have.
In at least. Enough funds to support their
livelihoods indeed come. So these are like the three

(18:52):
things that I'll mention. But above all, we have a number
of recommendations that Amnesty International has mentioned in
our Branded for Life reports. Thank you.
Thank you, Amnesty International.
Now for our next panel of participants from the Coalition
Against Witchcraft Accusations. Can you tell us what is that

(19:13):
Coalition Against Witchcraft Accusations?
Thank you. Any of our coalition
participants who would like to address that, please feel free
to share. Yeah, the Coalition was formed
after the lynching of Madame Aqua Dental and in 2020 we
formed a Commission led by the Sunny Institute and we brought a

(19:39):
number of partners on board, butit kind of fizzled away.
And then we reconvened again in 2022 with alongside Action 8.
And so Sunny Institute and Action 8 Gala re energized that
whole thing again from January 22.

(20:00):
And it was about bringing organizations and NGOs working
the the the area of human rights, but also gender based
violence and violence against women and specifically on this
issue around witchcraft accusation.

(20:21):
So we brought this collision together again and re and
adjusted it 22 going to 23 when we again mainly Sunny Institute
and and and Action Aid Ghana spearheaded the campaign for the
bill to be passed. So when we relaunched the

(20:41):
utility into two, it was focusedbased mainly on the bill to get
a legislation passed that would criminalize Withtap acquisition.
So it has brought a number organizations together on the
same kind of platform to campaign against witchcraft
accusation. But these organizers are fairly

(21:02):
independent. They do their own team
independently, but then we come together once in a while to to
do events together. But in terms of the bill itself,
as I said, it was actually at Ghana and the summer Institute
that sponsored the bill, that campaign for the bill and that
saw to the person of the bill inJuly.

(21:24):
Thank you so much. And continuing with you, Doctor
Azuma, can you tell us about thewomen and children that you work
with in the camps? Who are they and what are their
biggest needs? With the women and the children
that that we work with in the camps, we started the work there
following the accused, as I said.

(21:45):
But before that, even before themention, I was personally
involved with a family level. My first cousin was accused of
witchcraft accusation in our family and I was fighting that
on the personal level before July 20 when the lynching

(22:07):
happened. And so when the lynching
happened, we decided to come to conduct research into this whole
issue and we visited the camps, all the six camps.
There are 6 camps currently in the northern part of the Ghana
and by the way I come from the northern part so I know that
area very well. So I we visited those camps and

(22:31):
we sat with the women, with the children, The Who are their
minded and also with the traditional priests who are the
managers with the camp And we met some of the chiefs also who
are the traditional rulers of the area.
So we did another research into the phenomenon there during

(22:53):
canted can to 1 and that was when we met, we identified some
of the needs. We met some of this so that the
children were in school, most ofthem were school of school going
edge and we work with the Presbyterian Go Home project.
The Presbyterian Church of Ghanahas a project called Go Home and

(23:17):
the go home it was the little meaning or the original meaning
is actually Gambaga outcast home, Gambaga Outcast home and
this were this was started in 1960's the work.
So the Presbyterian jet organ which I am a member has been
working in this area for a long time since the 1960s.

(23:41):
So we work with them and we facilitate going, helping some
of the children go to school. We have provided some education
materials to the GO project in the past for some of the
children. But also we also provided help
with water borehole grilling. This was it was this was a

(24:04):
borehole repairs. They had a borehole that was
damaged and will help fixed it for them.
We help also with some of the needs for the women in terms of
just their daily basic needs. But we got to a point that we
made the assessment that most ofthe women that we worked with,

(24:25):
we realized that their presence in the camp was not in their
long term interests. And so we challenged them.
Those who can go back home and reintegrate safely, they said
let us know I would support themto do that.
So we switched ours help, not completely our support mainly to
help them reintegrate those reintegrate.

(24:48):
So we work with the go home project.
They help the women, they go anddo the sanitizers in the
villages and then they those that they are deemed to be safe
enough to go back, we support. And we've been able to find
shelter for these women back in their communities where it's not
safe for them to go to their communities.
We ask them to find space, A room somewhere that is safe for

(25:11):
them and we'll pay the rent and these are very small amounts of
money and we able to support them with the rents and then
give them something sworn for them to start their lives.
So even though we still hope in the camps, it's very minimal
because the camps are a double edged sword.
There's a lot of abuse going on in the camps.
There's a lot of sexual abuse there.

(25:33):
The Gambara camp that has been mentioned several times is one
of the places that a lot of abuse is going on.
Some of the miners have been raped and impregnated and forced
to vote through abortion. And that is horrifying.
Now when you visit there just for a few hours and you leave,
you wouldn't know the story. And so when you come there and

(25:56):
the women are telling we don't want to go home.
This. All part of kind of the way that
the camp managers have grind thewomen to say things when
visitors are around. And yes, some of them are really
scared to go home, but a lot of them, when you ask them the
follow up question, how many of you would want your children to

(26:17):
come to this place? They will say, God forbid we
don't even want our enemies to come here, let alone our
children. So you.
See that the women? Themselves are conflicted.
They have the managers who are watching over their shoulders.
They have to say things that will please their managers
because if you don't say the right things and then the
visitors may be in trouble. So those are the challenges that

(26:39):
we have working with the in the camps, but the women and the
kids that we have helped, we mainly focus towards
reintegration and we work with the Presbyterian Go Home
project. Thank you so much, Doctor Azuma.
Is there anything else we need to understand about overcoming

(27:01):
the rejection that they feel that puts them into the life
that they haven't asked for and the supporting them through the
rejection that they've experienced?
Yeah, that that is something that we found to be very, very
strong. The sense of rejection is even
one of the reasons why some of the women don't want to go back

(27:23):
home. Some of them are very angry.
They feel betrayed. They are feeling a sense of
rejection by their own family. So they are my Why do I want to
go back to this family that haverejected me and kicked me out
for all this year and betrayed some of them are people that
these women have supported and they've turned against them.

(27:46):
So that sense of bitterness and anger and sense of rejection is
all part of the management that we need, with the help of the Go
Home project, to talk to them, to take them through that kind
of process, through counseling. And the Presbyterian Church has
got, as part of their work, havehad church service, pastoral

(28:11):
counseling as part of the award day.
So it's not just providing material, but pastoral support.
And there's a pastor there who is a trained pastor who is
really who's working very closely with the women.
And as I'm speaking now, we havea woman, female pastor there who
is working with them. So she understands the yes, you

(28:32):
know the abilities, she knows whether she knows their
relatives, and she engages them to work it.
Through. Sometimes the family will come
back and apologize. We've had these tasks where the
family who have accused these women have come to apologize to
the Whitman and ask for forgiveness and then recall,
escalation takes place. They do some falsifications and

(28:56):
they go home. But evening that, one of the
things we need to be mindful of is also that especially in most
of these camps, before the womancan leave, they have to perform
a ritual to live. Now it used to be a nominal
thing of a chicken and just. Some.
Literal amount of money. But now it does become very

(29:19):
extortionist. They are charged so much to go
to Gambaga. The last time I checked just
about a week ago, they are now charging about 1500 to 2000
cities and that is about how much in dollars and $200.
Now many of these women cannot afford that and so to get that

(29:42):
money and to get around and to get a chicken and to get other
things before they can be let go.
So all of these factors are there that we need to know that
it comes money making entities for the camp managers and as
long as we keep financing the camps and making it a nice place

(30:02):
for the women to stay, we are just feeding into the business
of these camp managers. And that's where the dilemma is.
How do you help the women without perpetrating this kind
of abuse and exploitation that is going on?
Thank you very much, Doctor Zuma.
Now let's turn to Santaba and what are the stories of the

(30:26):
survivors that Santaba supports?OK.
Thank you very much. My name is Lamnatu Adam.
I work at Somtaba as the Executive Director.
Somtaba is a women's rights advocacy organization and we've
been working in the camp in the last 20 years and we've worked

(30:49):
closely with Ashley Ghana. I think that I just before I
just come to that, I want to saythat at the regional level, we
had what we call the regional reintegration Committee, which
was birth in 2010. And but then we just worked with
tests within the region. And I think that is where we saw

(31:12):
the need to have the coalition with PROP as an action need so
that beyond the organizations that are working the regional
level, we have at the human rights organization supporting
us at the work here in the North.
And so that's just a little bit to the history of power as an

(31:35):
organization. We are committed to securing
basic right for women and girls,especially aged women.
And I think that our mission aligned with action in Ghana
when we started in two O 5 and they partnered us and are still
partnering with us. Whilst we went there.

(31:55):
I was listening to my lady from Amnesty, Belinda.
And then, as she mentioned, sometimes due to a dream that
somebody has, it is enough to let a woman leave her community
because she's seen in a dream, probably.

(32:15):
And sometimes also when a child of another family member is sick
or has died suddenly, then they try to find out who did it.
And many time it falls on the elderly at home.
And so usually when accusations happen, the women at the time

(32:39):
are very devastated and they arequite depressed and very
traumatized. So as an organization, one of
the things we do is to give themsupport services towards finding
justice where we link them to the institutions that are
responsible or mandated for human rights issues, like a

(33:03):
permission on human rights and administrative justice like the
Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit and then also like
the social welfare. So when women are accused, these
are the number one thing we are looking at is for their safety
fairs and then also how we link them to get support services.

(33:26):
But beyond that, women who are accused also come individually
at the camp. And sometimes they become so
depressed. And so we let them find support
among themselves where we try tomobilize them and build their
capacity not to feel dejected because a lot of them when

(33:47):
they're making their command, they're like, I feel like dying,
I feel like killing myself. And so we let them see that it
is not just you, somebody else somewhere has also been akin.
So we build their capacity in such a way that we also let them
have an interface or engagement with the district assemblies,

(34:09):
especially at the locations where this comes from.
And so you see that the leadership of the nanny alleged
witches camp would engage with the district assembly because
the district assembly has the foremost responsibility to
ensure that they are living at the camp is a bit it's

(34:30):
respected. And so the stories of the women,
especially when it comes to an accusation that has resulted
from the death of another person, our most priority is
having the woman safe and face. What we also support beyond

(34:51):
linking them to access justice is how we also work with the
traditional authorities and the religious authorities because
many time accusations surface because they have consulted some
witch doctor, they have consulted some religious pastor
or Iman who have said that look,this has happened because of

(35:13):
another person's deal. So some of the work that we
support also has to do with caution Tizing, you know, some
of the key stakeholders to appreciate that they have their
belief, but then also their belief should not deny people
from enjoying their human rights.
So we do sensitizations at the community level where we look at

(35:36):
witchcraft accusation and it's associated rights violations and
we work with this key actors as I have talked about.
But one of the services we're trying to push currently is what
we call the One Stop centre, where we are getting centres
that's can support, where we're trying to get the services at

(36:00):
one place. Because many time you notice
that because of distance and because of drudgery, a lot of
the cases come and people are even time to go and seek the
service. So one of the things we're
pushing now is to have a One Stop centre where if somebody's
accused, there's a police, there's a hospital the person

(36:23):
can attend, especially if the person has some injuries.
And then there is shrug, we can also process some of the
mediation issues. If that is it was not found
criminal issues. But now we're also pushing for
the criminalization aspect of witchcraft, which I believe Prop
Azuma have talked about where weare pushing for the anti

(36:47):
witchcraft bill to be passed. But at best or what we do
especially with women who are also appeals is supporting their
reintegration. And I think jointly with the
reintegration committee, we haveactually reintegrated more than
200 women who we do monetary once in a while to see how they

(37:08):
are sailing. Largely this is what we do.
We do sensitizations at community level to stop the
accusations and the inflow of the women into the camps.
And then also for women who are accused, we support to build
their capacity, we support theirlivelihood program, we support
their reintegration program and we support their access to

(37:29):
justice program where we link them to the service providers.
Thank you so much for discussingthe programs that's on Taba
offers. What does it take to support you
in your mission to implement these programs?
If you look at their reintegration, for example, I

(37:51):
would say that is very hectic. Before you get one woman
reintegrated, you need to do a lot of travelling in and out to
be sure that the community of choice where the woman wishes to
be reintegrated fully accepts you know her and also for you to
ensure that there's no real accusation.

(38:13):
And so this process is quite hectic and very capital
intensive because many times thewomen who are accused do not
wish to go back to the same community.
They want to go back to another community.
And after you do the profiling at the camp, it's not enough for
you to say go, then you don't have to start again talking with

(38:34):
the community and family membersfor them to also kick start the
process. And then sometimes the woman is
not just sent home empty handed.Prof Azuma have mentioned that
there have to be some cleansing that is supposed to be done and
they come which will involve bring a RAM, bring some whatever
and a whole lot of money and addthe resources that are needed.

(38:58):
And so one of the things for me is there is funds for example,
to support all of these processes.
But what is also needed for our work is for us to have the until
Witchcraft bill passed. Because when it is passed, it
then make sure that nobody has the tendency to label somebody a

(39:21):
witch or label somebody or name somebody.
And then it also befalls on the the accuser to then prove
whether the person is accusing Israel is really a witch or not.
And if you look at this bill, italso proposes some kind of
support, counselling support to to their survivor or victim of

(39:44):
such an accusation. So it is good that the
witchcraft accusation, Bill, theanti witchcraft view is fast.
It is also important that we getthe buy in because this is quite
deep seated and we need communities to appreciate that
in as much as they have their belief, they should also see how

(40:05):
their belief is also hindering people getting access to
justice. But we also need the
international support and we're happy that you you are creating
spaces like this. For a voice to be heard and I
was surprised again when you guys were speaking and you were
all coming from the experiences.So either one of your relation

(40:28):
or other has have been accused and it is not also very
different here because for some of the women come also they were
originally not those who were accused.
Some of them have either supported their mother, was
their mother was undercome and has passed and the person is not
able to go back because there's the belief that the person has

(40:49):
quite inherited the spirit of witchcraft.
And funding, yes, it is good to have funding to be able to
spread deep, to scale some of the things that are working and
then also to do a lot of sensitizations and then also
help us to do proper reintegration of the women at
the camp. Like I said, we also need other

(41:10):
people to be on board. I think in the last 20 years or
so, there were just a few of us talking about witchcraft
accusation. It was not.
It was just about some Taba action lead, you know.
But now we are seeing more people coming into the space.
Prof Zuma is there, you know, Amnesty is there, and we are
supporting all. I think that all of us

(41:31):
collectively, when we put our efforts together, we'll be able
to make a headway towards that. Yeah.
But then also the other need is,yes, in as much as we are
looking at reintegration, which is a strategy towards the
closure, we're also looking at what else can the women who are

(41:51):
there now do? Because if you look at the
research that we did in 2022, which talked about depression
and then women at the camp, the findings were that about 52% of
these women are suffering from severe depressions and about 90%
of them also were having low quality of life.

(42:14):
So yes, the camps as safe havens, but they are not the
most comfortable for anybody to be there.
And I agree with Prof, you'll hear women say we want to be
here. It is not because they love the
place. It is because they are uncertain
whether when they go back, theirlife will be spared.
Nobody will want to be in the camp if he's assured that at

(42:39):
home she'll be better. If you look at the ages of the
women, more than 80% of them arebeyond age 60 years.
At this age and at home they would have had the family
support, but at this age they are there alone.
Some of them are going there with the grandchildren.
And for me that's another concern again because what is

(43:00):
then the fate of these grandchildren?
Are they going to suffer the same stigma?
The low quality of life at the camp and sometimes even getting
food to eat is a big challenge. And that's another concern we
may have to look at because every child has the right to
live with the family and to livein a protective environment.

(43:22):
Beyond the women were accused, let's just look at the injustice
that is also done being done with these women.
So we need that collective voiceto collectively look at the
issues. So witchcraft acquisition
beyondjets.com to look at this other associated issues that
comes with witchcraft accusations.

(43:42):
Thank. Thank you.
So much. Well, not to from Sangbada.
Now we're going to move over to Action Aid to John.
John, I'll let you introduce yourself and then can you tell
us how action AIDS work directlywith survivors and how the women
and children tell you what they need to feel safe and dignified?

(44:05):
Sarah, thank you very much. I must say that I'm happy to be
here. And from all the discussions,
nearly all of them are mentioning Action 8.
That tells you the fundamental groundbreaking work that Action
8 has done on the allege, which is camps and if you like, even

(44:25):
allege, which is accusation and molestation.
Action Aid started its own development experience in Ghana
since the 1990s and as part of our work, we were traditionally
a service delivery organization.And because of the way Action
Aid came in as an organization that targets the very vulnerable

(44:48):
in society, the very poor in society, the organization
started in the northernmost partof Ghana called Boko, where
Professor Zuma comes from. And so based on that level of
working closely with the people,Action is soon understood that
many development paradigms cannot be broken by just service

(45:11):
delivery because they are some of the constraints or challenges
of society, particularly in the very hard to rich areas and
poverty stricken communities goes beyond just service
provision. For example, Action Aid as a
learning collaboration adoption organization soon realized that

(45:33):
issues of poverty is centred around powerlessness of people,
particularly the very poor people, particularly because
people's vulnerabilities in thisregard based on actual
vulnerability analysis soon found out that one of the most
poorest people in the poverty budget is people accused of

(45:53):
witchcraft. And so based on the the landings
of Action Aid from the ground, traditionally from service
provisions through provision of schools, self facilities,
irrigation, dams, humanitarian services, Action is realized
that it matters most to work with community based

(46:14):
organizations that are evolving from the community such as some
Taba. And so some Taba was just a
community based organization, but hard community rule that
Ness and so action is because ofa shift in strategy started
working with organization like Suntal Banosak and the rest

(46:35):
building their own institutionaland adoptive capacities to be
able to identify the vulnerabilities that go beyond
just poverty alleviation. And so Suntaba was one of the
organization that helped in our first groundbreaking research
and learning around the languages comes.

(46:56):
And so based on that, the recommendation that evolve that
to be able to break poverty and vulnerability around the
Nalumanov and not the most part of northern regions, there was a
need for action Aid to rebalanceits development approach by
funding organizations like Somtaba and building their own

(47:19):
capacity to be able to conduct the researches to make sure that
we apply the human rights based approach to make or popularize
the issues of the vulnerability of alleged witches.
And so this then laid the superstructure of the work that
we did with Saltaba, which led to the lesson learning that the

(47:41):
alumna is talking about. We soon realized that it's not
just providing WASH facilities, water or sooner powered water
systems in the camps. But for us to be able to
sustainably address the issues of the vulnerabilities, there
must be the redistribution of power.

(48:01):
And that distribution of power then means that we have to bring
on board people that are affected by which CUP directly
at the centre of the discussionsor the decision making table.
But how could you do so? You needed a multi stakeholder
mechanism wherein evidence basedresearch would attract the

(48:24):
decision maker. So for example, we needed to
bring the Department of Women, Children and Social Protection,
we needed to bring the Northern Regional House of Chiefs on the
table, We needed to bring even the police Dops.
And so the Reintegration Committee was formed as a result
of research that was a testamentthat we needed to elevate the

(48:49):
policy discussions around working with people affected by
alleged witches, alleged accusations, and soon the
traditional level of providing services.
There was the need to elevate the discussion to policy
influence, bringing on board policy makers to elevate the

(49:10):
discussion beyond the very ruralcommunity level that we have
been looking at. And so the reintegration
committee then came into being. But then the concept was how
could? We.
Then break down the issue of alleged, which just comes
because that was where the abuses were being enhanced.

(49:31):
And we heard that from a professor Zoom where you're
spoken about a lot of research that testifies that.
You heard from Amnesty that testifies that.
And so at that level, the research was pointing to the
fact that we needed to disband or what would communities to
disband alleged witches comes and that helped a lot during

(49:53):
integration committee which DABAand Action Aid and all the Cover
Alliance is seeking to further devolve is looking at how do we
innovate the whole concept around even looking at the
livelihoods of people accused ofalleged witchcraft.
Because if you are trying to reintegrate them back home, what

(50:15):
will they be doing at home? How did they survive beyond the
fear? And so the issue of psychosocial
support, their well-being, livelihood security, how we are
building a stakeholder relationship with the Department
of Security, supporting with thetraditional authorities led to

(50:37):
this integral integrated approach, which has helped in
not popularizing the whole issueof alleged witches and bringing
the cross multi stakeholders, leading us to really even argue
that just the disbanded that comes alone will not work as
Lamina stated. And there was the need for some

(50:57):
form of affirmative action, which.
Led. To us sponsoring the private
members bill with a lot of fundsto be able to bring us to the
passage of the bill. That notwithstanding, the bill
collapsed, but there's renewed energy under the Color Alliance
that we are working with becauseProfessor Zuma answered and I'm

(51:18):
not said, then came in with a lot of research backbone and
that has helped to elevate the issues around alleged witches
and that has attracted national priority.
And so if you're asking the question of what is needed
beyond the resources, the funding that Laminate is talking

(51:38):
about, we need to be able to institutionalized this coalition
which is made of the more multi stakeholder relationship.
We need to be able to deepen ourown research around what is
working, what is not working. And that is where Action Net
comes in here. We have to bring institution,
are learning, adopting and relearning to be able to ensure

(52:03):
that we are getting a policy or a legislative framework that
will not only depend on the UN resolution that we are talking
about, but Ghana's own legislative framework to give
back him to the issues and the struggles of alleged witches in
a manner that will secure and guarantee their lives while

(52:23):
reinforcing their health right, their education rights and also
if you like security for us to build a more sustainable
country. Thank you.
Thank you. You pretty much have answered my
question, but I'm going to rephrase that just a little bit
because it's it's amazing how you were able to get all the

(52:46):
grassroots going and getting allthese communities and to help
empower you to be able to work with the survivors.
Would you have an example of anyof those survivor stories where
the women have been impacted so far on all the hard work that
you have done for them? Yeah.

(53:09):
So thank you very much. This has been very good.
But for some Taba, but I can answer it.
As I told you some Taba has beenour operational arm in terms of
how we directly work with the alleged witches.
But in the disbanding of this a leg which just comes one of the
strong lessons and that's a matter of I LED in disbanding

(53:31):
one of them. I guess that was Nabul in the
Nabuli setup. I didn't came into direct
confrontation in terms of how civil society organizations can
help alleg wages have a sign of relief. 1.
Of those was the livelihood skills training that Action Aid

(53:53):
working through Songtaba was able to support them in terms of
catering services, in terms of engaging agriculture as a
business while implementing whatwe called ABRO ecology
practices, engaging in for example, producing vegetables
organically and creating the market opportunities for them.

(54:16):
But as I said, as you go throughto even look at this lovely wood
security that we supported the community alleged witches to
acquire one of the significant gaps was worth.
How will they be? How will they be told?
What will be the startup part because giving them the skills

(54:39):
and recognizing that they are not their resource less endowed,
how do we empower them? And so that led to us working
quite closely with other stakeholders, especially
including the Minister of Gender, Children and Social
Protection. And if you like the Commission
on Human Rights, Administrative Justice, that then came in and

(55:02):
that led to the integration or the integrated approach where
we're able to also source for funding from the Australian
Embassy to be able to provide a lot of startup packs for this.
Some of the Adelaide Witches to go back, engage in catering
services, engage in agriculture as a business, but then it was

(55:23):
not without challenges further because they go to the
communities and the issue of stereotyping.
If the woman is selling, running, selling food at the
community, who wants to go and buy the food of the witch in
quotes. And so that level of stereotype
posed a big challenge and that is how the reintegration

(55:44):
committee and they communicate with that work.
How to reinforce that intensified to lead to
behavioral change in the communities and that is how that
supported some of the alleged witches who engaged in
livelihood security processes were able to scale over some of

(56:04):
these challenges. But even to promote how
sustainable even other development organization can
learn from that concept and approach.
And so it was an integrated approach where some of them up
to date are engaged in lovely woods, security, LinkedIn, their
communities, engaging in agriculture, service provision,

(56:27):
vegetable production, sales and marketing and processing.
And that is one way to guaranteesome of them have a secure life,
the wood in their communities and reconnecting with their
families. I think that was a very
impactful, life changing experience that were shared by
some of them, which is worth sharing.

(56:49):
Thank you. Thank you so much for that
answer. The next question is for Tolek,
the Total Life Enhancement Center for you.
Peter, Hello, it's good to see you.
Can you tell us about the survivors that Tolek has worked
with and what kind of support they're needing?
Thank you very much. Good evening to every member who

(57:12):
has logged in today telling us the energy and the passion that
we all do have towards seeing that these women are living a
dignified life. I want to put into a little
perspective photo like this before I go into answering your
question in briefs. So Total Life Enhancement Center

(57:35):
Ghana is a psychology focused organization advocating for
mental health and providing psychological services based in
the Northern region of Ghana. So what we do is to say that
we're in mental health and it's a social support service
institution. And what we have been doing span

(57:55):
around the northern, the northern garment, that is the
five regions of the north, but with some specific programmatic
areas that I will want to speak of focusing on the youth, women
and the under privilege in our society.
Project was established on the 5th of June 2018 and so we just

(58:19):
celebrated our 7th anniversary in June this year.
So that. Functions in four thematic areas
or 4 areas. Advocacy and our advocacy is on
mental health. Raising awareness and
influencing policy for better mental health is one of the
areas that we are focusing on. Therapy, Providing professional

(58:42):
psychological and counseling services to individuals.
We're getting basically trying to as much as possible to raise
funds to be able to engage in most of these activities and
above all, training. We are also engaged in training
to ensure that many people people understand what mental
health is and then can be able to champion mental health in

(59:04):
their own way. Our thematic areas are advocacy,
psychological provision, counseling services, emotional
intelligence and management, livelihood empowerment, and
above all, mental health research.
As I already said, we work with youth, women and the marginal
and among the marginalized. These women that have been

(59:27):
accused of witchcraft have been isolated, can no longer benefit
from the labor of the, I mean ofthe levels of their
youthfulness, especially the children that you were able to
bring forth. And now to do somebody think
that this woman cannot stay in the community.
So these are another is a group that we work with.

(59:47):
So guarantee directly to your question.
I would want to say that a report I got recently from the
Gender Ministry that talks aboutsome Amnesty International talks
about the support that the government gives to the women
and less privileged in society, which is called the Lee.
One of the media reports indicated about 800 women in

(01:00:08):
these alleged wishes which comes.
When supported by this institution.
And so the numbers are huge. And so who are these women?
The women that we went with are stolen, are women that have been
accused of witchcraft. And I think that accusation
process, you have some type of amnesty.
I've already mentioned somebody just get a dream, feel that it

(01:00:29):
is this holiday and sometimes itis a powerless holiday, the
helpless holiday who has been accused.
And so we work with these peopleand part of our work actually
happened in 2023 when the Commission of Human Rights and
Administrative Justice actually approach us to say that we want
you to do an assessment in four of the alleged which comes that

(01:00:53):
is in Gambaga, Patna, Nani and Kupu, all of these located,
three of them are located in Northern region, one in the
Northeast region. And so we went out there looking
to do an assessment. But after our assessment, the
findings that we got scared us because there was the answer to

(01:01:15):
go through assessment for 300 women.
We went in there and we went overboard almost over 400 women
we assessed and all of them we did realize that it was there
was high level of what we call trauma from our search and our
psychological tool that we are also find a high level or what

(01:01:36):
we call psychological distress. The number of days sometimes
I've already mentioned this issues of depression.
Depression was very high and I permit me to put figures to be
so that our audience can appreciate what we are talking
about. So when we did our work, we went

(01:01:57):
to Pattaya as at that time we were able to assess fully text
and individuals. Pattaya, there were one, I mean
131 women that we access at Nani103 and then at Gambaga 88.
This just fallen in line with what is right answers to do.

(01:02:19):
I don't want to present the detail outside that one.
And what we picked at that particular camp or that
particular assessment that we did was that almost 73% of these
women that were assessed experience what is called
psychological distressed, 61% experienced depression or had

(01:02:40):
symptoms of depression. Then 72% also exhibited symptoms
of anxiety, and then 37% exhibited symptoms of stress.
So looking at this, we said thiswas just a work, one time work.
We're asked to go and do a comeback, but we also had a

(01:03:01):
responsibility to our people. So we just decided and as an
institution, as part of our corporate social responsibility,
giving back to the people means the less privileged society.
We wanted to also continue even after assessment to continue to
provide some level of support. Why then did we do this?
We did this because currently inGhana, the mental health

(01:03:24):
challenges or the treatment gap in Ghana is 92%.
That is among the population that we can say called the
Ghanaian population. Yet there is an another
population which is excluded. These are the alleged which is
these are the presence you can just imagine.
So it means that what it means is that you know alleged which

(01:03:45):
comes the treatment gap is almost is obviously 100% they
will not find us mental health support.
And so we then decided to take it as upon ourselves as our
corporate social responsibility to go back to this women and
provide interventions. So what we go there to do is to
do individual counseling, to do group counseling and to provide

(01:04:09):
psycho education for these women.
Essence 2023, we are often embarked on one activity or the
other to the camps. Just this year we had we had
planned a message to the Gambagawhich comes and then the partner
and partner has been done. Now we're just planning to
execute that of very soon and weare hoping to do to reach the

(01:04:33):
adult to more comes that we havealready done assessment to
provide this support. So this is how that the women
that to let works with Total Life Enhancement Center Ghana to
let. These are the women we work with
and our work with them started with assignment that was given
to us by scratch. And following the findings, we

(01:04:57):
thought that given the general population, and this is a very
special population, you can justimagine the issues that are
there, the trauma and all of those.
So we decided to take it upon ourselves to embark on at least
quarterly psychological, mental health and psychosisial support
trips to these camps and then toprovide a little support to

(01:05:19):
them. And so in brief, these are the
women that we work with, these are our findings.
And what is still keeping us connected or glue to these women
is because we think that they need specialized services, which
is mental health and acquisitionsupport, which is lacking in the
general population. And Bill, what it means is that

(01:05:40):
they will suffer more if nobody is deliberate about them and
ready to provide some level of support for them.
So we have been doing the annualcases with these women,
providing public education and challenging how to help please
the issues of mental health and security support and therapy.

(01:06:03):
We are delivering this at our own level, at our own piece.
But we are hoping to escalate this to ensure that every woman
and the camp will have not less than a session in the quarter.
And that is what we are anticipating that would be able
to do. But I must add that earlier this

(01:06:23):
year through the, the international network against
accusation of witchcraft and ritual attacks, we've got a
small grant and that was actually in, I think I've got
that link through Sarah and thenI I applied and fortunately
we're granted that opportunity. So we are rolling out this and

(01:06:44):
hoping that we can scale it up. This is guest currently in two
camps. We're hoping that we can scale
this up to be able to reach manyof the camps in the northern
part of Ghana and towards the process of reintegration and
helping them live dignified lives.
If we don't even succeed in a reintegration process because

(01:07:07):
these are going to be cumbersomein a machine resource
constraint. Amnesty also mentioned the
resources are not there to ensure that we mean it's going
to be costly towards the reintegration process.
What can we do once we wait to secure what is look like
permanent is to ensure that these women don't go through
what is called trauma and re traumatize experiencing a lot of

(01:07:28):
mental health challenges. And like some table passion,
some of them will tell you, I wish I don't exist.
And what it means is that they are contemplating suicide.
And if they are contemplating suicide and there's no a
deliberate intervention in the area of mental health, what it
means is that we one day just meet them in their room and they
have executed their plan. And that's not what we want to

(01:07:49):
hear. We want this young to meet this
women to live, to tell the story, to change the narrative.
And that is why we think that with trauma, they cannot leave
this law with depression, they can't leave this law with
anxiety and stress and psychological technicality.
So we want to provide holistic mental health care for these
people to ensure that they're gaining, they're living quality

(01:08:13):
lives that will ensure that their stories are cool.
And the health that we need is being gotten from the
individuals that that have the resources and the must and the
question. And I see what is bringing us
all year together is fashion, because the passion is what can
change the story. And that is what we're and
that's all you need. All of us are coming from

(01:08:35):
different perspective. I think all those, not all my
other previous panelists excellent in their intervention,
but we need a more collaborativeapproach.
A more collaborative approach iswhat can we not?
This battle is what can we not this struggle, and it's what can
give this woman the dignity thatthey do deserve.

(01:08:56):
And I think that as a colleague,we want to pledge to continue to
provide mental health association support, specialize
of course, because we have a team of professionals who has
mental health professionals, psychologists, counselors,
mental health nurses, and that'sexactly what we want.
So I am extending as our services to all the other team

(01:09:18):
members here to say that let's concentrate and make use of our
services so that once you're doing your livelihood
empowerment, your adjusted system, we are also ensuring
that these women have a sound mind even to be able to speak
for somebody to defend them. Thank you very.
Much. Thank you so very much, Peter.

(01:09:39):
Thank you to our panelists. Before we close out today and
we'll take some questions through chat, I want to
memorialize Madam Aquadenta a little more, who was killed
after being accused of witchcraft.
Our expert guests today who havespoken, you are welcome to tell

(01:10:01):
us about her story and what thatMemorial Day that you just had
for her, what that meant and howshe was memorialized on that
day. Yeah, thank you, Sarah.
The Memorial Day for Clear Dent.It was organized by some members
of KAWA alongside another women's group here in Accra.

(01:10:28):
These are mainly women theologians and teachers and
pastors and we organized it to mark the 5th anniversary of her
barbaric lynching which happenedon the 23rd of July 2020.
Many a number of lynchings and killings and murders have taken

(01:10:52):
place of women who have been accused of witchcraft and not
goes unreported and a few have been reported widely but nothing
happened. Soon after the headlines and
nothing happened. 2010 there wasa big case like that in Tema.
A woman was set ablaze because she was accused of being a

(01:11:14):
witch, and she literally bend todeath.
And there was outrage and publicoutcry.
And within two weeks, everythingjust went back to normal.
So some of us were determined that a clear dentist case would
not would not just be let to runit into tenure.

(01:11:36):
And that's why we wanted to keepher memory alive.
And as long as the bill is stillnot signed into law, we thought
it was wise to commemorate the 5th anniversary.
We brought the family down. We had portraits of these women,
a lot of them who are still in the camps.
We had their portraits and we had some slogans written beneath

(01:11:59):
the appropriates calling for thebill to be expedited, calling
for the government to do whatever they can to get this
bill passed in honor of a queer dentist so that her death will
not be in vain. It was a very powerful moment.
We had actually, the vice president of the country, who is

(01:12:21):
a female herself, wanted to be there.
She told her she was going to bethere herself.
And last minute something happened and took her away and
she sent the gender minister to come represent her.
So the minister was there. She address the Catherine again,
this was done with the coalition, with some Taba, with

(01:12:45):
Action Aid and other women organization, as I said.
So this was done on the 23rd of July and it had a lot of media
coverage to to just keep the issue in the public domain
because the MP who's working with us has told us that
politicians work with pressure. So keep the pressure up, keep

(01:13:06):
talking about it in the media and that's what politicians
don't like. So they will work on on on the
bill. So we shouldn't relax.
So it was meant to commemorate the Lady Quiadent and to keep
the pressure on the government to pass the bill that is against
witchcraft accusations. Do any more of our presenters

(01:13:27):
today want to speak about Aquadenta?
Yes, let me jump in. So, John here, I think that one
of the lessons that I learned from the commemoration was the
fact that when 123 more committed team of individuals or

(01:13:52):
organizations commit themselves to keep an issue on the banner
and to contribute towards publicpolicy influence, it has weight.
In fact, the kinds of people that this commemoration dream

(01:14:13):
and The Big Bang, if you look atthe way the media landscape was
bustling with reportage around the commemoration of a queer
dentist, lynching was very, veryimportant.
It is important in a number of significant respects.
I emphasize the issue of the movement building the multi

(01:14:35):
stakeholder relationship, which I have stated repeatedly that we
need to keep it, We need to build the partnership, we need
to strengthen it. We need people like you to join
the coward with different resources and capacities for us
to push forward for this government that made a

(01:14:56):
commitment. And that's my second point.
The level of commitment was not just by the CSO, but I see a
commitment of government throughthe minister of the Minister of
Gender, Children and Social Protection.
She made it abundantly clear to us that this government was

(01:15:17):
willing and ready to reroute thebill back to Parliament.
And I think we all clap to that.What remains is what I've been
emphasized how we can remain strong Amnesty International
action needs on Taba at Sunday Institute and the worst of

(01:15:37):
others. How do we sustain the pressure
that Professor Azuma is talking about on the Minister of Gender,
Children and Social Protection and not only that, the Vice
President of normally the country like Ghana.
Then technically for me, what wehave from the commemoration if a

(01:16:01):
social capital which we must work, we must nurture and
develop to not only ensure that we are addressing issues around
a current and languages rights but even post the passage of the
legislation, we do not have to take our feet off the pedal.

(01:16:21):
We need to be able to ensure thegovernment is covered with a
needed legislative frameworks toensure that, like it happens in
Ghana, the legislation does not stay in the books, it does not
remain in the shelf that I'm seeing behind Sarah's back.
We have to make sure that laws, this law works and must admit

(01:16:44):
that justice to the people like Madame Equate Dente, whose sons
are still living aloft and looking at us.
We need to ensure that many morewomen do not go through that
hazardous, adventurous and wicked barbaric way of life.
So I think that the level of commitment is high.
We need to sustain our resources.

(01:17:05):
We need to sustain our commitment.
We need to keep the multi stakeholder relationship.
We need to ensure that to get them, we are pushing for public
policy influence that would leadto the ultimate objective of
getting the legislation passed to safeguard the rights of
women. Thank you.
Thank you to our incredible panelists for sharing the

(01:17:28):
powerful stories of the survivors you work with and the
hope you're creating through your work.
What we've heard today reinforces why organizations
around the world are coming together to support survivors
and seek change. For those who want to learn more
and support this work, there aremany organizations that you can

(01:17:51):
connect with. In addition to our panelists
organizations Amnesty International, the SAMA
Institute, Sangtaba and Action Aid, there are other groups like
Advocacy for Alleged Witches in Nigeria, the International
Network Against Witchcraft Accusations and Ritual Attacks
and Stock Child Witch Hunts. I also want to mention the

(01:18:15):
International Alliance to End Witch Hunts.
You can find educational resources at
endwitchhunts.org/day. That is our web page dedicated
to World Day Against Witch Hunts, and we do have the links
to the reports and the websites that we've talked about today

(01:18:37):
and to the organizations. At In Witch Hunts, our vision is
a world without witch hunts, where survivors and their
families receive justice, acknowledgement and support.
You can find our podcasts, research, and ways to get
involved at nwitchhunts.org. Together, we can create a world

(01:18:58):
where everyone recognizes these violations of human dignity.
Thank you for joining us today and for opening your hearts to
the experiences of survivors around the world.
Please keep this conversation growing by sharing what you've
learned with others and continuing to support the vital
work of these organizations. And if you're interested in

(01:19:21):
becoming a collaborator or a supporter, either personally or
through your organization, we need your action.
Please reach out to us at in witchhunts.org or contact one of
the other organizations we've heard from today.
Thank you.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Ghana's Outcast Camps: A Conversation with the Coalition Against Witchcraft Accusations