December 4, 2024 • 48 mins
Explore the pressing global challenge of modern witch hunts with Kirsty Brimelow KC, one of Britain's leading human rights barristers and incoming vice chair of the Bar Council. Drawing parallels between harmful traditional practices worldwide, Brimelow shares insights from her groundbreaking work developing protection orders and contributing to the 2021 United Nations resolution on witch hunting and ritual attacks.
Content Warning: This episode discusses sensitive topics including Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and violence related to witchcraft accusations.
Brimelow shares expert insights on developing effective community engagement strategies while respecting cultural sensitivities. She demonstrates how fear and deeply held beliefs can trigger accusations, illustrating her points with compelling examples from her extensive legal career, policy development work, and international case studies. This episode provides essential context for understanding modern witch hunts as a contemporary global human rights issue requiring coordinated international response. Through examining successful interventions against FGM, we explore proven strategies for combating harmful traditional practices through combined legal action and community engagement.
Join us for this critical discussion about protecting vulnerable populations and building effective systems for monitoring and preventing witch hunting in the modern world.
Key Topics Covered:
Religious freedom and harmful traditional practices
Comparative analysis of legal approaches to FGM and witchcraft accusations
Role of religious leaders in perpetuating or preventing accusations
Challenges facing law enforcement in remote communities
Connection between disability discrimination and witchcraft allegations
Implementation strategies for the 2021 UN resolution
Global initiatives targeting elimination of harmful practices by 2030
Pan African Parliament Guidelines for Addressing Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks
Connecticut Witch Trial Exoneration Project
Massachusetts Witch-Hunt Justice Project
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to Witch Hunt. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
And I'm Sarah Jack. Today we're talking with
Christie Bermelo KC, one of Britain's leading human rights
barristers and the incoming vicechair of the Bar Council.
Before we begin, it's important to note that today's
conversation touches on female genital mutilation, or FGM, as
(00:20):
well as witchcraft accusations. Recent research from the
University of Birmingham has found that FGM is a leading
cause of death in many countries, with an estimated
44,320 girls and young women dying annually due to these
procedures. The fight against FGM offers
important lessons for combating witchcraft accusations.
(00:41):
Both are harmful practices that persist despite being illegal in
many countries. Both often involve cultural and
religious justifications. And both require a combination
of legal action and community engagement to address
effectively. Kirsty Brimelow has been at the
forefront of combating both these issues, playing a key role
in developing FGM Protection Orders in the UK and helping
(01:04):
draft the 2021 UN resolution condemning harmful practices
related to witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks.
Witch hunts aren't just historical events or problems in
remote villages, they're happening right now in major
cities like London. And this isn't just a local
issue, it's a world problem, which means it belongs to all of
(01:24):
us. If we band together, we can stop
these harmful practices. One of the key challenges
Kirstie discusses is addressing harmful beliefs while respecting
religious freedom. She explains how fear often acts
as a trigger, especially when people have deeply held beliefs
about the dangers of witchcraft.The challenge becomes how do we
engage with communities to help them place boundaries on their
(01:46):
beliefs, recognizing that beliefs don't justify causing
harm to others? The role of religious leaders is
particularly complex. Some leaders actively promote
witch hunting through harmful practices, while others work to
prevent accusations. Finding ways to engage these
different groups is crucial for creating lasting change.
(02:07):
Law enforcement faces its own challenges, as Christie
explains. And as we've seen globally, many
communities are too remote to access law enforcement readily.
Even when accessible, some law enforcement personnel themselves
believe in witchcraft and may bereluctant to intervene.
These are just some of the practical obstacles we need to
overcome. Another critical issue is
(02:29):
dehumanization. As we learned at our recent
conference, in some cultures, people who are different aren't
seen as fully human. When accusers believe someone is
guilty of witchcraft, they oftenliterally see them as a demon or
someone under demonic control, making it easier to justify
causing harm. Like FGM, which has regular
(02:49):
progress reports and dedicated experts tracking its
elimination, we need similar resources for addressing
witchcraft accusations. The UN has set goals to
eliminate all of these harmful practices by 20-30.
Through our conversation with Kirstie, we'll explore these
challenges and potential solutions, seeing how legal
systems, community engagement, and international cooperation
(03:12):
can work together to protect vulnerable people.
Let's hear what she has to say. It's a great pleasure to welcome
Kirstie Brimwell. KC to witch Hunt podcast.
As one of Britain's leading human rights barristers and the
first woman to chair the Criminal Bar Association,
Kirstie has been at the forefront of defending human
(03:32):
rights both in the UK and internationally.
Josh and I were fortunate to hear Kirstie share her
remarkable insights in person atthe recent Witchcraft and Human
Rights Conference in Lancaster. Thank you for joining us today.
Please share about your work andexpertise.
It's a pleasure to be invited onthe podcast.
(03:52):
I am a King's Council, which means that I'm a barrister at a
certain level of appointment. I became a King's Council in
2011 and I practice as a barrister in the jurisdiction of
England and Wales in criminal law.
And also I practice globally in international human rights.
(04:17):
And I formerly was the chair of the Barn Human Rights Committee.
And it was probably back in around 2000 and eight, 2009 that
I first started coming across harmful practices through
beliefs in witchcraft. And that was specifically
through a training project with UNICEF Nigeria.
(04:42):
And that then lead to further training and looking at the
African charters, looking at theAfrican treaties to the regional
and international law framework,and then looking at as well
where this belief system came from.
(05:04):
And then looking at the importance of protecting
cultural beliefs and protecting religious beliefs, but also the
importance of the belief not stepping over the line in the
harm. And from that work, which which
went on for around 10 years or so, actually training in Nigeria
(05:25):
and very fond of Nigeria. So it's back and forth there
over over a decade or so from that work.
It led to other connections withother organisations and
academics who were interested inthis witchcraft belief and they
were particularly interested in the ongoing harm that was
(05:46):
happening to people through being accused of witchcraft.
And that also caused a further link to harm caused to people
with albinism. And that was probably the the
start of different collaborations which brought
everything within the UN to raise attention at the UN, which
(06:06):
resulted in a resolution which Iknow we're going to come on to
talk about, which was passed in 2021.
What do we need to understand about the intersections of your
legal specialties mentioned? You work in criminal law, public
law, and international human rights law.
(06:27):
Yeah, the intersections I suppose is always quite
interesting in that I work in, in, in the US it would, I'd be
framed as a trial attorney and that I'm there defending in
serious crimes, so murder, terrorist cases and also prior
to defending, although in the UKwe can do both at the same time.
(06:49):
But for me, prior to defending, I had a practice as well,
prosecuting as well as defendingthe intersection between crime
and international law and publiclaw really is probably
transferring that expertise whenI'm in an international setting,
(07:10):
in witness handling, in evidencegathering, in comparative law.
That's probably where it comes in use in the public law
setting. That is very useful when you are
looking at challenging public authority decisions or yes,
local authority decisions and, and, and, and ensuring that
(07:34):
people's human right are upheld when the state is making a
decision. So I think all of that all
combines, when you're looking at, as we are here, you're
looking at people who are being abused and their arm is is so
extreme that they are killed andkilled in a very violent way.
(07:57):
And the first consideration is what is the state doing to
protect that person? This is where it all comes
together because the state ultimately and importantly has a
duty to protect life. So there's your starting point.
And if it's not doing enough or if it's not doing anything, then
(08:19):
you need to look at what it can actually do and the reasons why
it's it's falling down in certain areas.
Thank you. We often think of it as
something far away, but these cases are coming across the
desks of lawyers and doctors in cities and towns throughout the
world. Could you help our listeners
(08:39):
understand what's really happening?
I think that's a really important question because when
we think about FGM or we think about witchcraft beliefs which
lead to murder, we tend to thinkabout them in perhaps a remote
village on certain continents onthe African continent, on the
(09:01):
Southeast Asian continent. And we don't think about them
happening in countries like where I practice in the UK and
we don't think about them happening in London.
But a little bit of history to this and perhaps to some of my
interest in crime and then what I was in the UK and what I was
(09:22):
seeing in Nigeria back in 2007, there was a girl called Juliet.
So she arrived in the UK on the DRC.
Now, she'd lost all contact withher parents when she was six
years old, and she'd lived with her aunt and uncle in in DRC.
After an unexpected death, she started being accused of being
(09:49):
Kandoki, that is being a witch. And this was the start of
torture and abuse towards her that was actually sanctioned by
local religious leaders. And it included that she was
beaten, she was scolded, she wasstabbed, she was cut, she was
burned and chili pepper was rubbed into her wounds and she
(10:11):
was forced. She was subjected to a forced
exorcism and she was made a domestic slave.
I the the the Medical Foundationfor care of victims of torture
recorded that she recounted to them and this she said they
would call me a witch and they would beat me.
(10:32):
I had no friends, no life. I was just a dead body walking
every day. So this was a a young girl in
the UK who was rescued from thisbelief system that was used to
harm her. And the methods that we use for
the exorcism are, are the type of methods that that that we've
seen and we do see throughout incriminal cases where this belief
(10:55):
system is there. And sadly, the result has been a
killing of somebody. Probably a really the famous
case in London that really hit attention was was that that the
torso of of a small boy who was washed up from the Thames in
London and he was given the nameAdam, but his identity has never
(11:19):
been actually has actually been uncovered from his DNA.
He come from somewhere within western Nigeria and it looked
like he was the victim of a ritual sacrifice.
So this was only in 2001. And the big case here which
(11:39):
resulted in an inquiry was the case of Victoria Clambier.
And she was a young girl who hadleft a really caring family on
the Ivory Coast in 1999 to come to London to live with a
relative, a great aunt. And she'd been sent to London by
(12:01):
her caring families or a better life, a better education, and in
order to get a head start in life.
And within a year of her arriving in London, she has been
murdered by her great aunt and her great aunt's boyfriend.
Now the preacher at the local church where her great aunt
(12:26):
attended had declared her kin doki and she died.
Victoria Clamby died at the age of 8 and she had 128 separate
injuries on her body. She died of hypothermia in
hospital. What was what triggered the
inquiry was that she, before herdeath, was known to three
(12:49):
separate housing authorities. She was evolved in four
different social service departments and she'd been known
to two child protection teams atthe Metropolitan Police and
she'd also been admitted to two NHS hospitals and then
discharged and returned home despite evidence of abuse being
observed by staff within the hospital.
(13:12):
This resulted in a report from Lord Lambing in 2003.
And the report's a very important one because it looked
at the institutional failures, of course, the failures of the
state, different branches of thestate to protect this little
girl. But what it did look at and
wasn't really instructed to lookat was witchcraft Kindoki, which
(13:37):
was very much at the heart of it.
And this has been a problem I found with data collection and,
and data really is key. So in the UK where there's a
murder and why perhaps the reason for the murders put
forward by the defendant is because of an evil spirit or
(13:58):
jinns. I, I was acting to get rid of
that evil spirit. The data is not recording it
under any witchcraft belief. It's going to record the offence
itself, the murder and it will recall the sentence.
And often in cases such as that there is psychiatrist involved
and the dispute within the courtis whether the person is fit to
(14:20):
plead, whether they have capacity to plead.
And often when it comes to sentence as well, it is whether
it's somebody who needs to be detained within a mental health
hospitals. So the sentencing is focused on.
But again, the witchcraft beliefand the form coming from that is
not so we're lacking in a lot ofdata and, and I can give you
(14:42):
other examples of children who within the murder trial it has
come out or within the grievous bodily harm or cruelty of a
child. It has come out that the
motivation of the adults abusingthe child have been that this
(15:03):
person is a witch. And quite often there is a local
religious leader who is giving affirmation to the belief of the
guardians of that child. But they need to act in this way
to get rid of the evil spirits and terrible cruelty results.
Now there's absolutely no doubt that even without a resolution,
(15:25):
you don't need AUN resolution toset out that this is completely
unlawful. This is crimes.
You have domestic law which covers the crimes of really
serious harm, of torture, of murder, of manslaughter.
There's plenty of domestic crimes and that's the same in
every jurisdiction. But really what we're trying to
(15:45):
do is just trying to bring this all together so we can also
tackle the cultural aspect, if that is what it is, of
witchcraft believes and and witchcraft belief going over.
So in manifest harm, you could hold whatever beliefs you were
like. And if I've spoken to a whole
room full of witches and in thatroom, nobody was saying that
(16:12):
they can harm people when they practice there witchcraft, if we
use that word so that that's thedifference.
It is stepping over into harm and that's where the law has
always had that line. That then is a crime.
And so I think what's really important, we bring Edward
together and within its nationallaw, within the UN, is just for
you to set out that this is a global issue.
(16:33):
It's not in some village somewhere where you might have
your sort of unconscious bias. So this is only done within a
certain tribe. This is happening in London.
We're finding the same issues with the data in the United
States as well, because in the end, in the legal process, as
(16:53):
you mentioned, what gets noted down is the crime itself and the
result of the trial. And you mentioned targeting the
cultural aspects of it. How do we work with cultural
aspects with sensitivity to the underlying cultures?
(17:17):
Yes, it's obviously important tobeing sensitive to other
cultures. However, the the law is is is
really clear, including regionallaw that cultural beliefs don't
trump harm to a person. And there's a line quite simply.
(17:39):
And to me, that's not such a difficult line to to explain,
and it's the right line. So obviously everybody's
religious beliefs, for example, are protected.
And it's important that they're protected, and they're protected
under international law so that the state has a duty to protect
(18:02):
your beliefs and you have a right to freedom of thought, to
conscience and religion. And that on the global stage is
under Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights. But any harmful manifestations
(18:22):
of that right fall outside the scope of that right.
So it's a qualified right, like many rights are qualified.
The right to life is an absoluteright.
It's really just that it's the proportionality and that
qualification. And particularly when you have a
child involved and the child's got their own rights as well.
(18:45):
And so you're fighting right with a child for protection from
the state because of their vulnerability.
And this special rapporteur, theUN special rapporteur on freedom
of religion or belief has, has emphasized this.
And I think he, he probably, he put it in a very pithy way and,
and, and this abyss that the, the serious harm inflicted on
(19:06):
persons accused of witchcraft can never be justified.
And that if someone were to invoke the right to freedom of
religional belief in order to support harmful practices such
as persecution and punishment ofalleged witches, this would be a
clear case for limiting the application of freedom of
(19:28):
religional beliefs. So it's very clear, here's your
cultural expression, here's yourreligious expression, here's the
limit because the harm is takingyou.
The limit is there where the harm is.
And I have personally found, I personally, I don't think sound
(19:49):
particularly difficulty communicating that message when
I worked in Nigeria. However, it's very difficult to
view. It's who it's communicated to
and it is very difficult if you live in a community where you
don't have much money and you'rereliant on perhaps your crop or
(20:10):
your animals, and then there's some tragedy within that sphere.
And then your local pastor tellsyou that's because your child is
a witch. And that is very difficult for
people. Then if they have that belief,
they will then perhaps absolve themselves of responsibility and
consider, well, I'm doing what the pastor has said or the
(20:32):
pastor is doing it for me. And that's why I feel we should
be doing much more to bring together religious leaders so
that they can discuss this and to bring together the pastors
who do preach that these kind ofpractices are acceptable
practices. That's a really great example of
(20:53):
being able to bridge the gap between that message from the UN
resolutions and then the realityof what's happening in
communities regarding addressingharmful practices.
Is there some background that you could give us on the UN
resolution targeting FGM? And then anything else you'd
(21:15):
like us to know about your experience with the resolution
on harmful practices related to witchcraft accusations?
Yeah. So I think the, when you're
looking at law and you're looking at any UN resolutions
and you're dealing with issues which have perhaps arisen
through a, a, a belief system, the law can be a very blunt
(21:41):
instrument. So that's why I think there's a
sort of combination of of factors which come together in
order to bring forward a solution that's actually going
to protect people who are vulnerable.
And one thing that was an issue in the UK was that although FGM
(22:03):
is a crime, there hadn't been any prosecutions for FGM and
there hadn't been a successful conviction for FGM until very
recently, in fact. And so I was at the time chair
of the by Human Rights Committeeand we started looking at
perhaps are the ways of preventing the crime being
(22:27):
committed. And in fact we got quite a lot
of pushback from some of the absolute brilliant activists in
the AGM area because they were much more focused on wanting
punishment, wanting a conviction, wanted a criminal
process. But what we did was we looked at
whether there could be preventative measure in the same
(22:49):
way there was for forced marriages, for early child
marriages. And we thought that you could
actually bring in an injunction if there was a concern that a
child was going to be taken out of the jurisdiction for FGN to
be performed on that child. And so we made these suggestions
(23:10):
to our parliament and I and another member of the Bar Human
Rights Committee was then involved in working alongside
the legislature on the drafting of what became FGM Protection
Orders. And they've been very successful
because it also removes it from the family dynamic of putting
(23:33):
somebody in a position where they might have had FGM
themselves and they were in a position where they would be
having to report on family in order to protect their child.
In that with the FGM Protection Orders, a school could make a
report, a local authority. In fact, anyone who got some
(23:53):
concern and the level of concerndidn't have to be particularly
high to get an injunction to prevent the child and being
taken out of the jurisdiction. And it was happening and there
was data to show this was happening, particularly during
summer holidays and so much so that it was called the cutting
season when kids were taken backto their place of heritage to be
(24:17):
cut. So that's been very successful.
And I've often wondered whether they could might be something
similar that could happen with witchcraft because kids as well.
There's, there's evidence of kids disappearing from schools
and again, concerns that they have been taken and back to
certain places where there wouldbe, there would be access to an
(24:39):
exorcism of the of, of the childas a who abuse of the child done
in secret. And if there's any concern of
that, again, there could be a protection order in place.
I think that that sort of criminal law only goes so far.
And to actually try and protect is one way of progressing the
law with the UN resolution. I mean, the UN gets lots of
(25:03):
criticism. What's the point of it?
Is it or a big talking shop? My view is that it's very
important to have this UN resolution, which was I, I was
one of the people who drafted it.
But what was very important is it was Kenya, in fact, that
(25:23):
pushed it forward. And then you get the agreements
of the other States. And it really is historic
because it does various things. First of all, it brings the
issue of witchcraft within the UN frameworks.
That means it's monitored, That means there has to be reporting
(25:45):
on it. And that starts to link to
collecting of data. And it it actually sets out and
urges states to condemn powerfulpractices related to accusations
of witchcraft and ritual attacksthat result in human rights
violations. And this isn't something being
imposed by other jurisdictions coming into a country and can be
(26:10):
thought to be imposing their owncultural beliefs.
This is something coming from a coming together of all countries
that diverse settled nations andthem agreeing that there has to
be a condemnation of accusationsof witchcraft.
And it also encourages and urgesstate to take measures necessary
to ensure the elimination of harmful practices and anti to
(26:32):
human rights violations related to accusations of witchcraft and
ritual attacks and to ensure accountability and effective
protection of all persons. And of course, all of this
resolution also applies to the belief that people with
albinism, their body parts are lucky.
And I, I first came across that belief through a film called
(26:54):
White Shadow, which was being sponsored by the Tanzanian
embassy at the time, a number ofyears ago now in London.
And then I met a usually brave young activist, a woman with
albinism, as she had been attacked in our home and had had
(27:15):
both her arms cut off because ofthis beliefs that her body parts
could then be used to bring luck.
And there's actually a sort of spike in these killings in areas
in different areas of different countries such as Tanzania where
there's mining or where there's fishing.
And there's the spikes in attacks on people, albinism in
those areas because their body parts are actually used to
(27:37):
spring to our net, sprinkle at the amount of mines.
And so the resolution is taking that on completely squarely.
And that actually is very important to to bring together
these harmful beliefs and to look at tackling them together,
even though they're driven by opposite ends.
(28:01):
One is believing in evil and theother is believing in luck, but
they're resulting in harm and sois harm to people.
Oh, just to add on the UN resolution, right.
Just a bit of information you'llbe interested in how it
developed. We held and I was a moderator on
it was the first conference on this issue on witchcraft belief
and belief in harm cause to people with albinism through
(28:24):
this belief in their body parts.Bringing luck in September 2017,
this was the first conferences at the UNS part of the UN Human
Rights Council session. And what was important was it
linked partners from across the world, globally, and it linked
the activists, it linked the people living in the places
(28:45):
where they were in fear and suffering and had suffered.
And it was just very informativeand it couldn't be ignored.
And I think since then there then was, as you, as you
probably know, there was then a conference in 2019 at Lancaster
University, again bringing together globally actors in this
(29:08):
area, which then moved on to theUN resolution which was passed
on the 5th of July 2021. And that was very much driven by
the indefatigable IK Euro who had been set up as the
independent expert on the rightsof of people with albinism.
(29:32):
She was absolutely fantastic. But that all arose through all
the work, the build up, trying to get, the, bringing the
charities, NGOs together to get that position created.
So a lot can happen I think witha small group of people.
And here I am now talking and we, we met at the last
conference at Lancaster University where I was able to
(29:52):
hear and be informed about the challenges and the witchcraft
believed in the US. And and so the the links go on
and the movement goes stronger, involving people with all sorts
of different expertise and different viewpoints.
And with the resolution in place, now's the hard work of
(30:17):
implementing it as well. And what lessons can we learn
from the implementation of the FGM resolutions?
It's a really good question as to what lessons to learn.
It's always important, I think, so that people have ownership of
a resolution and the good thing with this is that's been
(30:39):
achieved because the fact it haspassed, there's an ownership
there with the state. So you have government
ownership. The ownership of people, if you
are affected by it, can probablyonly be achieved through having
meetings, bringing people over. It's brilliant.
(31:01):
Now with the technologies we found at Lancaster, you can link
people up and on a screen to so that their viewpoints and their
practical issues are considered the data.
And the data collection is absolutely huge because if you
don't have the data, then there's not going to be
recognition of the seriousness of the issue.
(31:23):
And the data that we had, which is still the latest data was in
which we had before the UN resolution was that in 2021
there, there have been over 20,000 victims across 50
countries and six regions who had faced extreme human rights
(31:45):
violations, including loss of lives, loss of limbs and
property due to harmful practices which were inherent to
and emanated from accusations ofwitchcraft and ritual attacks.
And so that data is very solid on the need to protect people.
(32:06):
And very recently the Universityof Birmingham in the UK has been
doing research on farm through FGM globally.
And it's found that the FGM and cutting is a leading cause of
(32:26):
death in practising countries. And the study that it undertook
estimates that 44,320 girls and young women die annually due to
FGM and cutting. And this is critical data
(32:46):
because what it does is it's moving this practice from being
harmful to being life threatening.
And so if you start to, to frametheir belief or the cultural
practice in in a way as it's notonly harmful, it's life
(33:06):
threatening, then perhaps peoplestart to reply in a, in a, in a,
in a different way. So data is really key.
But also I still think that religious leaders remain
absolutely pivotal in their and we're not seeing enough
(33:28):
conferences or enough discussions where those pastors
who are preaching, and I've seenit a lot in Nigeria or preaching
health practices and also Nollywood films where it's
within that entertainment industry.
We're just not seeing any engagement, partly because I
(33:50):
think that the pastors are so powerful.
They tend to be very rich, very powerful and it's difficult to
engage and criticism of them quite often results in a
lawsuit. Though it would be good to try
and get them within the UN structure to actually have an
open debate on the harm and the results of their preaching and
(34:14):
see what. Their viewpoint is you mentioned
their powerfulness and the lawsuits and I'm and then the
engagement that's really needed.What I'm wondering is because
there's been such extreme crime tied to some of those religious
(34:34):
institutions and specific leaders, where do you start with
that? Because of the accountability,
because we're in a place now where some of these people have
the data on. How much?
Crime has been tied to their campaigns against alleged
witches is enormous. How do we?
(34:58):
What do we do? How do we get into that
community, into those? How do we bring those leaders
into these conversations with us?
It's as evidence of a crime being committed by whoever it's
committed by if it's committed by a religious leader or if it's
committed by somebody making a speech at all.
(35:18):
There's no immunity attaching tosomebody because they're a
religious leader. And I, I probably has really got
to the stage where the criminal law enforcement might be the
only solution if, if there's no conversation that's able to take
place. And some of it is gathering the
evidence. And previously the evidence of
(35:40):
what happened within a religiousgathering wasn't as easy to
gather because it relied on eyewitnesses, on churchgoers, on
people who were to inform or somebody they might be
frightened of and they might be in danger from now, there's
plenty of ways of gathering evidence.
Everybody's got a mobile phone to record.
So I, I think probably states really need to grasp the nettle
(36:05):
a little bit more. I know some states do ban
certain preachers from entering their country because of what
they preach, but that really is just keeping the problem over
there. And the countries that are
banning those preachers, perhapsthey can try and open dialogue.
Maybe state to state is one way of doing it and religious
(36:26):
leaders to religious leader in terms of dialogue is another way
of doing it. But failing all of that, there
needs to be some way of implementing the criminal law
where harm is being caused to children.
Because in the UK, we've, you see it all over the world have
given the terrible statistics. But but we did actually have
here as well a report as a result, which did look at
(36:49):
criminal law and witchcraft believes.
And that was by Eleanor Stobart and I recommend reading that.
I mean, again, it's quite a longtime ago now, but it was called
child abuse linked to accusations of possession and
witchcraft. But here it's focused much more
on on child protection. But it's quite useful.
(37:12):
It's quite useful to looking at patterns of, of criminal
behaviour in order to identify if a child perhaps is being
perceived to be a rich. And so that is quite useful for
social workers and so on to identify.
But that that arose from a case which I'll, I'll just tell you
about very briefly. And it, and it really brings to
(37:34):
light the, the, the harm. And I'm deliberately using cases
in this jurisdiction because it,it, it is global and you would
not think that it's happening in, in London, but he absolutely
does. And, and, and so I, I think a
real strong steps need to be taken.
(37:54):
This was a case called where thedefendant was, was a number of
defendants, so Pinto, Kisanga and Luanza.
And this was sort of back in 2006 again, a young girl and an
8 year old, and she was found inEast London by a street warden,
(38:18):
sitting on the steps of a flat, alone, shivering, afraid.
And she'd been labeled as a witch by her relatives, aunt,
uncle. And again, this was the belief
in witchcraft. So starve the child, starve the
evil spirit. So there was a starvation
(38:41):
deprived issued and again there was a Chili Peppers rubbed in
her eyes and the defenders were convicted of a number of counts
of child cruelty and their sentences were they were
sentenced to different between 10 and four years on in prison.
It was then an appeal against sentence, but the appeal
actually focused on some explanation or some mitigation
(39:06):
through their beliefs is that they genuinely believe the child
was a witch. And so it was put before the
Court of Appeal that the sentences should be reduced
because this was a genuine belief rather than something
which was evil coming from them.But that that to me is just a
completely misguided mitigation.It's not mitigation.
(39:26):
And we need to also see the courts really, really slamming
down on this because of the harmthat is is caused.
And the Court of Appeal said this in in that case, it said
such a belief provides no mitigation and in our judgement
does little to reduce the culpability of the offenders.
Their sentences would slightly reduce on the grounds.
But the Court of Appeal there really sort of knocked that out.
(39:50):
And then we had the report from Eleanor Stobart.
But these cases keep coming in terms of identifying, there's
obviously another aspect. And I've worked actually
training social workers in, in the you kind of worked
alongside. The National FGM Centre and
(40:11):
Barnardo's looking at signs thata child is is is perhaps being
abused through a witchcraft police.
And some of the findings from the Stobart report in particular
was at the age of these childrenwhere the witchcraft police
where they were being abused as between about 8 or 14.
(40:32):
Although it's a little difficulton that data because at the age
of 14, a kid's got agency so they can they could run away
probably at that age if they or find another way of dealing with
what's going on. And that also found that schools
are the first point of referralsand that these kids will come to
notice through signs of neglect.And that would include neglect
(40:54):
with wearing unseasonable clothing, really, really warm
clothes to overheat the person in summer, very light clothes so
that the child is very, very cold in winter, and other
neglect. And it also found that the
backgrounds of these children beincluded, a significant number
(41:15):
from the DRC, but also from Southeast Asia, from Nigeria,
from the Caribbean, and about half were born in the UK.
And in terms of carers, it foundthat in six cases the children
live with their natural parents and in 19 cases there was a step
parent or a carer in the household.
So that was taking us a predominance there in terms of
(41:37):
the care. And a common feature in terms of
behaviour of the kids which had triggered their witchcraft
belief was a difficulty of the carer accepting a difference
including a form of disability, an illness, challenging
behaviour, sleepwalking, bed wetting and bad dreams.
(41:59):
And all of these were leading toan accusation of of evil or
possession or or or or witchcraft.
And the methods to get rid of that evil included beating,
burning, starving, isolation, including removal from school.
So another sign is the kid is suddenly taken out of school and
and his disappear lost the radarand recommendations.
(42:24):
Actually from the Stobart report, we say it's quite an old
report. It's a very old report now, but
that they included child protection procedures in places
of worship. I thought that was this rather
long architect on that result tothe the places of worship again
where of course people have faith and they have confidence
and they have belief and it and it can be difficult, but there
(42:46):
needs to be more child protection looking at this
specific issue. Yeah, I we've really have had
that discussion. I'm hearing a lot today about
what success can look like. So when I think about how
massive organizations that have children and they're not
necessarily prioritizing their safety, it is really, it's like
(43:10):
it kind of seems like a no brainer, but it's I think we are
needing to follow the example ofthe National FGM Center.
They have done such a great job of collecting data and then
engaging with safeguarders across the different ways that
adults are interacting with children.
And I really learned a lot from the conference listening to them
(43:33):
discuss that project. So I hope that more can be
learned from that work. Yeah, absolutely.
And it's so important that people are linking their
different experiences because itis protecting the most
vulnerable in our society and globally.
People do want to protect children, but there's a real
(43:55):
issue here. But in the UK, coming from a
country, I mean, I was brought up in Lancashire, in the most
West of England, I was brought up with all the stories about
witches, with the Pendle witches.
And people are surprised it's still going on.
It's still going on and real serious harm is being caused to
(44:16):
people because of a witchcraft link which we all thought had
had left us back in the 1500s. But that no, it hasn't.
Thank you so very much. This has been wonderful.
It's so informative hearing fromyou with your direct involvement
in these resolutions. I probably would have.
(44:38):
Just going back to collaboration, what's been
really interesting since the UNEresolution has been that there
have been movements across the world to try and tackle harm
(45:00):
caused by witchcraft stigmatisation.
And some of those advances are, For example, in August 23, there
was a coalition of UK and Nigeria based NGOs which used
the International Day Against Witch Hunts to call for
(45:24):
government and key partners to join together to actually
implement the UN resolution on the elimination of witchcraft.
In July 2023, Ghana's MPs passeda bill criminalising witchcraft,
although it wasn't signed by thepresident.
March 23, the Pan African Parliament released its
(45:47):
guidelines on accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks
towards eliminating harmful practices and other human right
violations. And he did this at joint
sittings of the Committee on Gender, Use, Family, People with
Disability, Committee on Health,Labour, Social Affairs,
Committee on Education, Culture,Tourism and Human Resources at
(46:08):
the PAP headquarters in Midrandi, South Africa.
So that just shows the collaboration and how this
belief in Hull goes across so many different social aspects of
society and how we lived. In 2022, there was an article by
Canadian research team recommending future research
(46:29):
that incorporate the terminologyof the resolution when gathering
data on albinism, particularly where negative myths and stick
around the condition are well documented.
In 2022, the South African Law Commission undertook a review of
the Witchcraft Suppression Act and they've been calls to pardon
and some success. I believe that you can talk
(46:49):
about, you've been talking about, which I learnt about at
the conference, and they've beencalls to pardon those
historically accused of witchcraft in the UK and that
that's ongoing. And in Scotland, in fact, there
was a near success in getting that through and it was a
political change. And so no doubt be picked up
again. And I'm very interested in the
(47:10):
course of pardon for the Lancashire witches, which let's
say was where I was brought up. And there was these terribly
unfair trials and terribly awfulaccusations.
And these people were killed, which we look back on now and we
see that they were unlawfully killed.
And it'll be good to get recognition perhaps of, of, of
(47:33):
what happened to them in the same way as happened in
Connecticut. So perhaps those are some,
perhaps those are some steps that that bring back to people
on the national domestic level what it means.
And then if you draw it up to the modern day and make people
(47:53):
just look frankly and directly at what's going on now and the
harm and the killings been murdered that are happening now,
the cruelty that's happening nowwhen this belief is translated
into into harm. And then hopefully people can
draw from the lessons of the past and realize that it's time
again to really bring an end to it.
(48:16):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Witch Hunt.
We will. Have more for you next week.
Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
Welcome to Witch Hunt. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
And I'm Sarah Jack. Today we're talking with
Christie Bermelo KC, one of Britain's leading human rights
barristers and the incoming vicechair of the Bar Council.
Before we begin, it's important to note that today's
conversation touches on female genital mutilation, or FGM, as
(00:20):
well as witchcraft accusations. Recent research from the
University of Birmingham has found that FGM is a leading
cause of death in many countries, with an estimated
44,320 girls and young women dying annually due to these
procedures. The fight against FGM offers
important lessons for combating witchcraft accusations.
(00:41):
Both are harmful practices that persist despite being illegal in
many countries. Both often involve cultural and
religious justifications. And both require a combination
of legal action and community engagement to address
effectively. Kirsty Brimelow has been at the
forefront of combating both these issues, playing a key role
in developing FGM Protection Orders in the UK and helping
(01:04):
draft the 2021 UN resolution condemning harmful practices
related to witchcraft accusations and ritual attacks.
Witch hunts aren't just historical events or problems in
remote villages, they're happening right now in major
cities like London. And this isn't just a local
issue, it's a world problem, which means it belongs to all of
(01:24):
us. If we band together, we can stop
these harmful practices. One of the key challenges
Kirstie discusses is addressing harmful beliefs while respecting
religious freedom. She explains how fear often acts
as a trigger, especially when people have deeply held beliefs
about the dangers of witchcraft.The challenge becomes how do we
engage with communities to help them place boundaries on their
(01:46):
beliefs, recognizing that beliefs don't justify causing
harm to others? The role of religious leaders is
particularly complex. Some leaders actively promote
witch hunting through harmful practices, while others work to
prevent accusations. Finding ways to engage these
different groups is crucial for creating lasting change.
(02:07):
Law enforcement faces its own challenges, as Christie
explains. And as we've seen globally, many
communities are too remote to access law enforcement readily.
Even when accessible, some law enforcement personnel themselves
believe in witchcraft and may bereluctant to intervene.
These are just some of the practical obstacles we need to
overcome. Another critical issue is
(02:29):
dehumanization. As we learned at our recent
conference, in some cultures, people who are different aren't
seen as fully human. When accusers believe someone is
guilty of witchcraft, they oftenliterally see them as a demon or
someone under demonic control, making it easier to justify
causing harm. Like FGM, which has regular
(02:49):
progress reports and dedicated experts tracking its
elimination, we need similar resources for addressing
witchcraft accusations. The UN has set goals to
eliminate all of these harmful practices by 20-30.
Through our conversation with Kirstie, we'll explore these
challenges and potential solutions, seeing how legal
systems, community engagement, and international cooperation
(03:12):
can work together to protect vulnerable people.
Let's hear what she has to say. It's a great pleasure to welcome
Kirstie Brimwell. KC to witch Hunt podcast.
As one of Britain's leading human rights barristers and the
first woman to chair the Criminal Bar Association,
Kirstie has been at the forefront of defending human
(03:32):
rights both in the UK and internationally.
Josh and I were fortunate to hear Kirstie share her
remarkable insights in person atthe recent Witchcraft and Human
Rights Conference in Lancaster. Thank you for joining us today.
Please share about your work andexpertise.
It's a pleasure to be invited onthe podcast.
(03:52):
I am a King's Council, which means that I'm a barrister at a
certain level of appointment. I became a King's Council in
2011 and I practice as a barrister in the jurisdiction of
England and Wales in criminal law.
And also I practice globally in international human rights.
(04:17):
And I formerly was the chair of the Barn Human Rights Committee.
And it was probably back in around 2000 and eight, 2009 that
I first started coming across harmful practices through
beliefs in witchcraft. And that was specifically
through a training project with UNICEF Nigeria.
(04:42):
And that then lead to further training and looking at the
African charters, looking at theAfrican treaties to the regional
and international law framework,and then looking at as well
where this belief system came from.
(05:04):
And then looking at the importance of protecting
cultural beliefs and protecting religious beliefs, but also the
importance of the belief not stepping over the line in the
harm. And from that work, which which
went on for around 10 years or so, actually training in Nigeria
(05:25):
and very fond of Nigeria. So it's back and forth there
over over a decade or so from that work.
It led to other connections withother organisations and
academics who were interested inthis witchcraft belief and they
were particularly interested in the ongoing harm that was
(05:46):
happening to people through being accused of witchcraft.
And that also caused a further link to harm caused to people
with albinism. And that was probably the the
start of different collaborations which brought
everything within the UN to raise attention at the UN, which
(06:06):
resulted in a resolution which Iknow we're going to come on to
talk about, which was passed in 2021.
What do we need to understand about the intersections of your
legal specialties mentioned? You work in criminal law, public
law, and international human rights law.
(06:27):
Yeah, the intersections I suppose is always quite
interesting in that I work in, in, in the US it would, I'd be
framed as a trial attorney and that I'm there defending in
serious crimes, so murder, terrorist cases and also prior
to defending, although in the UKwe can do both at the same time.
(06:49):
But for me, prior to defending, I had a practice as well,
prosecuting as well as defendingthe intersection between crime
and international law and publiclaw really is probably
transferring that expertise whenI'm in an international setting,
(07:10):
in witness handling, in evidencegathering, in comparative law.
That's probably where it comes in use in the public law
setting. That is very useful when you are
looking at challenging public authority decisions or yes,
local authority decisions and, and, and, and ensuring that
(07:34):
people's human right are upheld when the state is making a
decision. So I think all of that all
combines, when you're looking at, as we are here, you're
looking at people who are being abused and their arm is is so
extreme that they are killed andkilled in a very violent way.
(07:57):
And the first consideration is what is the state doing to
protect that person? This is where it all comes
together because the state ultimately and importantly has a
duty to protect life. So there's your starting point.
And if it's not doing enough or if it's not doing anything, then
(08:19):
you need to look at what it can actually do and the reasons why
it's it's falling down in certain areas.
Thank you. We often think of it as
something far away, but these cases are coming across the
desks of lawyers and doctors in cities and towns throughout the
world. Could you help our listeners
(08:39):
understand what's really happening?
I think that's a really important question because when
we think about FGM or we think about witchcraft beliefs which
lead to murder, we tend to thinkabout them in perhaps a remote
village on certain continents onthe African continent, on the
(09:01):
Southeast Asian continent. And we don't think about them
happening in countries like where I practice in the UK and
we don't think about them happening in London.
But a little bit of history to this and perhaps to some of my
interest in crime and then what I was in the UK and what I was
(09:22):
seeing in Nigeria back in 2007, there was a girl called Juliet.
So she arrived in the UK on the DRC.
Now, she'd lost all contact withher parents when she was six
years old, and she'd lived with her aunt and uncle in in DRC.
After an unexpected death, she started being accused of being
(09:49):
Kandoki, that is being a witch. And this was the start of
torture and abuse towards her that was actually sanctioned by
local religious leaders. And it included that she was
beaten, she was scolded, she wasstabbed, she was cut, she was
burned and chili pepper was rubbed into her wounds and she
(10:11):
was forced. She was subjected to a forced
exorcism and she was made a domestic slave.
I the the the Medical Foundationfor care of victims of torture
recorded that she recounted to them and this she said they
would call me a witch and they would beat me.
(10:32):
I had no friends, no life. I was just a dead body walking
every day. So this was a a young girl in
the UK who was rescued from thisbelief system that was used to
harm her. And the methods that we use for
the exorcism are, are the type of methods that that that we've
seen and we do see throughout incriminal cases where this belief
(10:55):
system is there. And sadly, the result has been a
killing of somebody. Probably a really the famous
case in London that really hit attention was was that that the
torso of of a small boy who was washed up from the Thames in
London and he was given the nameAdam, but his identity has never
(11:19):
been actually has actually been uncovered from his DNA.
He come from somewhere within western Nigeria and it looked
like he was the victim of a ritual sacrifice.
So this was only in 2001. And the big case here which
(11:39):
resulted in an inquiry was the case of Victoria Clambier.
And she was a young girl who hadleft a really caring family on
the Ivory Coast in 1999 to come to London to live with a
relative, a great aunt. And she'd been sent to London by
(12:01):
her caring families or a better life, a better education, and in
order to get a head start in life.
And within a year of her arriving in London, she has been
murdered by her great aunt and her great aunt's boyfriend.
Now the preacher at the local church where her great aunt
(12:26):
attended had declared her kin doki and she died.
Victoria Clamby died at the age of 8 and she had 128 separate
injuries on her body. She died of hypothermia in
hospital. What was what triggered the
inquiry was that she, before herdeath, was known to three
(12:49):
separate housing authorities. She was evolved in four
different social service departments and she'd been known
to two child protection teams atthe Metropolitan Police and
she'd also been admitted to two NHS hospitals and then
discharged and returned home despite evidence of abuse being
observed by staff within the hospital.
(13:12):
This resulted in a report from Lord Lambing in 2003.
And the report's a very important one because it looked
at the institutional failures, of course, the failures of the
state, different branches of thestate to protect this little
girl. But what it did look at and
wasn't really instructed to lookat was witchcraft Kindoki, which
(13:37):
was very much at the heart of it.
And this has been a problem I found with data collection and,
and data really is key. So in the UK where there's a
murder and why perhaps the reason for the murders put
forward by the defendant is because of an evil spirit or
(13:58):
jinns. I, I was acting to get rid of
that evil spirit. The data is not recording it
under any witchcraft belief. It's going to record the offence
itself, the murder and it will recall the sentence.
And often in cases such as that there is psychiatrist involved
and the dispute within the courtis whether the person is fit to
(14:20):
plead, whether they have capacity to plead.
And often when it comes to sentence as well, it is whether
it's somebody who needs to be detained within a mental health
hospitals. So the sentencing is focused on.
But again, the witchcraft beliefand the form coming from that is
not so we're lacking in a lot ofdata and, and I can give you
(14:42):
other examples of children who within the murder trial it has
come out or within the grievous bodily harm or cruelty of a
child. It has come out that the
motivation of the adults abusingthe child have been that this
(15:03):
person is a witch. And quite often there is a local
religious leader who is giving affirmation to the belief of the
guardians of that child. But they need to act in this way
to get rid of the evil spirits and terrible cruelty results.
Now there's absolutely no doubt that even without a resolution,
(15:25):
you don't need AUN resolution toset out that this is completely
unlawful. This is crimes.
You have domestic law which covers the crimes of really
serious harm, of torture, of murder, of manslaughter.
There's plenty of domestic crimes and that's the same in
every jurisdiction. But really what we're trying to
(15:45):
do is just trying to bring this all together so we can also
tackle the cultural aspect, if that is what it is, of
witchcraft believes and and witchcraft belief going over.
So in manifest harm, you could hold whatever beliefs you were
like. And if I've spoken to a whole
room full of witches and in thatroom, nobody was saying that
(16:12):
they can harm people when they practice there witchcraft, if we
use that word so that that's thedifference.
It is stepping over into harm and that's where the law has
always had that line. That then is a crime.
And so I think what's really important, we bring Edward
together and within its nationallaw, within the UN, is just for
you to set out that this is a global issue.
(16:33):
It's not in some village somewhere where you might have
your sort of unconscious bias. So this is only done within a
certain tribe. This is happening in London.
We're finding the same issues with the data in the United
States as well, because in the end, in the legal process, as
(16:53):
you mentioned, what gets noted down is the crime itself and the
result of the trial. And you mentioned targeting the
cultural aspects of it. How do we work with cultural
aspects with sensitivity to the underlying cultures?
(17:17):
Yes, it's obviously important tobeing sensitive to other
cultures. However, the the law is is is
really clear, including regionallaw that cultural beliefs don't
trump harm to a person. And there's a line quite simply.
(17:39):
And to me, that's not such a difficult line to to explain,
and it's the right line. So obviously everybody's
religious beliefs, for example, are protected.
And it's important that they're protected, and they're protected
under international law so that the state has a duty to protect
(18:02):
your beliefs and you have a right to freedom of thought, to
conscience and religion. And that on the global stage is
under Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights. But any harmful manifestations
(18:22):
of that right fall outside the scope of that right.
So it's a qualified right, like many rights are qualified.
The right to life is an absoluteright.
It's really just that it's the proportionality and that
qualification. And particularly when you have a
child involved and the child's got their own rights as well.
(18:45):
And so you're fighting right with a child for protection from
the state because of their vulnerability.
And this special rapporteur, theUN special rapporteur on freedom
of religion or belief has, has emphasized this.
And I think he, he probably, he put it in a very pithy way and,
and, and this abyss that the, the serious harm inflicted on
(19:06):
persons accused of witchcraft can never be justified.
And that if someone were to invoke the right to freedom of
religional belief in order to support harmful practices such
as persecution and punishment ofalleged witches, this would be a
clear case for limiting the application of freedom of
(19:28):
religional beliefs. So it's very clear, here's your
cultural expression, here's yourreligious expression, here's the
limit because the harm is takingyou.
The limit is there where the harm is.
And I have personally found, I personally, I don't think sound
(19:49):
particularly difficulty communicating that message when
I worked in Nigeria. However, it's very difficult to
view. It's who it's communicated to
and it is very difficult if you live in a community where you
don't have much money and you'rereliant on perhaps your crop or
(20:10):
your animals, and then there's some tragedy within that sphere.
And then your local pastor tellsyou that's because your child is
a witch. And that is very difficult for
people. Then if they have that belief,
they will then perhaps absolve themselves of responsibility and
consider, well, I'm doing what the pastor has said or the
(20:32):
pastor is doing it for me. And that's why I feel we should
be doing much more to bring together religious leaders so
that they can discuss this and to bring together the pastors
who do preach that these kind ofpractices are acceptable
practices. That's a really great example of
(20:53):
being able to bridge the gap between that message from the UN
resolutions and then the realityof what's happening in
communities regarding addressingharmful practices.
Is there some background that you could give us on the UN
resolution targeting FGM? And then anything else you'd
(21:15):
like us to know about your experience with the resolution
on harmful practices related to witchcraft accusations?
Yeah. So I think the, when you're
looking at law and you're looking at any UN resolutions
and you're dealing with issues which have perhaps arisen
through a, a, a belief system, the law can be a very blunt
(21:41):
instrument. So that's why I think there's a
sort of combination of of factors which come together in
order to bring forward a solution that's actually going
to protect people who are vulnerable.
And one thing that was an issue in the UK was that although FGM
(22:03):
is a crime, there hadn't been any prosecutions for FGM and
there hadn't been a successful conviction for FGM until very
recently, in fact. And so I was at the time chair
of the by Human Rights Committeeand we started looking at
perhaps are the ways of preventing the crime being
(22:27):
committed. And in fact we got quite a lot
of pushback from some of the absolute brilliant activists in
the AGM area because they were much more focused on wanting
punishment, wanting a conviction, wanted a criminal
process. But what we did was we looked at
whether there could be preventative measure in the same
(22:49):
way there was for forced marriages, for early child
marriages. And we thought that you could
actually bring in an injunction if there was a concern that a
child was going to be taken out of the jurisdiction for FGN to
be performed on that child. And so we made these suggestions
(23:10):
to our parliament and I and another member of the Bar Human
Rights Committee was then involved in working alongside
the legislature on the drafting of what became FGM Protection
Orders. And they've been very successful
because it also removes it from the family dynamic of putting
(23:33):
somebody in a position where they might have had FGM
themselves and they were in a position where they would be
having to report on family in order to protect their child.
In that with the FGM Protection Orders, a school could make a
report, a local authority. In fact, anyone who got some
(23:53):
concern and the level of concerndidn't have to be particularly
high to get an injunction to prevent the child and being
taken out of the jurisdiction. And it was happening and there
was data to show this was happening, particularly during
summer holidays and so much so that it was called the cutting
season when kids were taken backto their place of heritage to be
(24:17):
cut. So that's been very successful.
And I've often wondered whether they could might be something
similar that could happen with witchcraft because kids as well.
There's, there's evidence of kids disappearing from schools
and again, concerns that they have been taken and back to
certain places where there wouldbe, there would be access to an
(24:39):
exorcism of the of, of the childas a who abuse of the child done
in secret. And if there's any concern of
that, again, there could be a protection order in place.
I think that that sort of criminal law only goes so far.
And to actually try and protect is one way of progressing the
law with the UN resolution. I mean, the UN gets lots of
(25:03):
criticism. What's the point of it?
Is it or a big talking shop? My view is that it's very
important to have this UN resolution, which was I, I was
one of the people who drafted it.
But what was very important is it was Kenya, in fact, that
(25:23):
pushed it forward. And then you get the agreements
of the other States. And it really is historic
because it does various things. First of all, it brings the
issue of witchcraft within the UN frameworks.
That means it's monitored, That means there has to be reporting
(25:45):
on it. And that starts to link to
collecting of data. And it it actually sets out and
urges states to condemn powerfulpractices related to accusations
of witchcraft and ritual attacksthat result in human rights
violations. And this isn't something being
imposed by other jurisdictions coming into a country and can be
(26:10):
thought to be imposing their owncultural beliefs.
This is something coming from a coming together of all countries
that diverse settled nations andthem agreeing that there has to
be a condemnation of accusationsof witchcraft.
And it also encourages and urgesstate to take measures necessary
to ensure the elimination of harmful practices and anti to
(26:32):
human rights violations related to accusations of witchcraft and
ritual attacks and to ensure accountability and effective
protection of all persons. And of course, all of this
resolution also applies to the belief that people with
albinism, their body parts are lucky.
And I, I first came across that belief through a film called
(26:54):
White Shadow, which was being sponsored by the Tanzanian
embassy at the time, a number ofyears ago now in London.
And then I met a usually brave young activist, a woman with
albinism, as she had been attacked in our home and had had
(27:15):
both her arms cut off because ofthis beliefs that her body parts
could then be used to bring luck.
And there's actually a sort of spike in these killings in areas
in different areas of different countries such as Tanzania where
there's mining or where there's fishing.
And there's the spikes in attacks on people, albinism in
those areas because their body parts are actually used to
(27:37):
spring to our net, sprinkle at the amount of mines.
And so the resolution is taking that on completely squarely.
And that actually is very important to to bring together
these harmful beliefs and to look at tackling them together,
even though they're driven by opposite ends.
(28:01):
One is believing in evil and theother is believing in luck, but
they're resulting in harm and sois harm to people.
Oh, just to add on the UN resolution, right.
Just a bit of information you'llbe interested in how it
developed. We held and I was a moderator on
it was the first conference on this issue on witchcraft belief
and belief in harm cause to people with albinism through
(28:24):
this belief in their body parts.Bringing luck in September 2017,
this was the first conferences at the UNS part of the UN Human
Rights Council session. And what was important was it
linked partners from across the world, globally, and it linked
the activists, it linked the people living in the places
(28:45):
where they were in fear and suffering and had suffered.
And it was just very informativeand it couldn't be ignored.
And I think since then there then was, as you, as you
probably know, there was then a conference in 2019 at Lancaster
University, again bringing together globally actors in this
(29:08):
area, which then moved on to theUN resolution which was passed
on the 5th of July 2021. And that was very much driven by
the indefatigable IK Euro who had been set up as the
independent expert on the rightsof of people with albinism.
(29:32):
She was absolutely fantastic. But that all arose through all
the work, the build up, trying to get, the, bringing the
charities, NGOs together to get that position created.
So a lot can happen I think witha small group of people.
And here I am now talking and we, we met at the last
conference at Lancaster University where I was able to
(29:52):
hear and be informed about the challenges and the witchcraft
believed in the US. And and so the the links go on
and the movement goes stronger, involving people with all sorts
of different expertise and different viewpoints.
And with the resolution in place, now's the hard work of
(30:17):
implementing it as well. And what lessons can we learn
from the implementation of the FGM resolutions?
It's a really good question as to what lessons to learn.
It's always important, I think, so that people have ownership of
a resolution and the good thing with this is that's been
(30:39):
achieved because the fact it haspassed, there's an ownership
there with the state. So you have government
ownership. The ownership of people, if you
are affected by it, can probablyonly be achieved through having
meetings, bringing people over. It's brilliant.
(31:01):
Now with the technologies we found at Lancaster, you can link
people up and on a screen to so that their viewpoints and their
practical issues are considered the data.
And the data collection is absolutely huge because if you
don't have the data, then there's not going to be
recognition of the seriousness of the issue.
(31:23):
And the data that we had, which is still the latest data was in
which we had before the UN resolution was that in 2021
there, there have been over 20,000 victims across 50
countries and six regions who had faced extreme human rights
(31:45):
violations, including loss of lives, loss of limbs and
property due to harmful practices which were inherent to
and emanated from accusations ofwitchcraft and ritual attacks.
And so that data is very solid on the need to protect people.
(32:06):
And very recently the Universityof Birmingham in the UK has been
doing research on farm through FGM globally.
And it's found that the FGM and cutting is a leading cause of
(32:26):
death in practising countries. And the study that it undertook
estimates that 44,320 girls and young women die annually due to
FGM and cutting. And this is critical data
(32:46):
because what it does is it's moving this practice from being
harmful to being life threatening.
And so if you start to, to frametheir belief or the cultural
practice in in a way as it's notonly harmful, it's life
(33:06):
threatening, then perhaps peoplestart to reply in a, in a, in a,
in a different way. So data is really key.
But also I still think that religious leaders remain
absolutely pivotal in their and we're not seeing enough
(33:28):
conferences or enough discussions where those pastors
who are preaching, and I've seenit a lot in Nigeria or preaching
health practices and also Nollywood films where it's
within that entertainment industry.
We're just not seeing any engagement, partly because I
(33:50):
think that the pastors are so powerful.
They tend to be very rich, very powerful and it's difficult to
engage and criticism of them quite often results in a
lawsuit. Though it would be good to try
and get them within the UN structure to actually have an
open debate on the harm and the results of their preaching and
(34:14):
see what. Their viewpoint is you mentioned
their powerfulness and the lawsuits and I'm and then the
engagement that's really needed.What I'm wondering is because
there's been such extreme crime tied to some of those religious
(34:34):
institutions and specific leaders, where do you start with
that? Because of the accountability,
because we're in a place now where some of these people have
the data on. How much?
Crime has been tied to their campaigns against alleged
witches is enormous. How do we?
(34:58):
What do we do? How do we get into that
community, into those? How do we bring those leaders
into these conversations with us?
It's as evidence of a crime being committed by whoever it's
committed by if it's committed by a religious leader or if it's
committed by somebody making a speech at all.
(35:18):
There's no immunity attaching tosomebody because they're a
religious leader. And I, I probably has really got
to the stage where the criminal law enforcement might be the
only solution if, if there's no conversation that's able to take
place. And some of it is gathering the
evidence. And previously the evidence of
(35:40):
what happened within a religiousgathering wasn't as easy to
gather because it relied on eyewitnesses, on churchgoers, on
people who were to inform or somebody they might be
frightened of and they might be in danger from now, there's
plenty of ways of gathering evidence.
Everybody's got a mobile phone to record.
So I, I think probably states really need to grasp the nettle
(36:05):
a little bit more. I know some states do ban
certain preachers from entering their country because of what
they preach, but that really is just keeping the problem over
there. And the countries that are
banning those preachers, perhapsthey can try and open dialogue.
Maybe state to state is one way of doing it and religious
(36:26):
leaders to religious leader in terms of dialogue is another way
of doing it. But failing all of that, there
needs to be some way of implementing the criminal law
where harm is being caused to children.
Because in the UK, we've, you see it all over the world have
given the terrible statistics. But but we did actually have
here as well a report as a result, which did look at
(36:49):
criminal law and witchcraft believes.
And that was by Eleanor Stobart and I recommend reading that.
I mean, again, it's quite a longtime ago now, but it was called
child abuse linked to accusations of possession and
witchcraft. But here it's focused much more
on on child protection. But it's quite useful.
(37:12):
It's quite useful to looking at patterns of, of criminal
behaviour in order to identify if a child perhaps is being
perceived to be a rich. And so that is quite useful for
social workers and so on to identify.
But that that arose from a case which I'll, I'll just tell you
about very briefly. And it, and it really brings to
(37:34):
light the, the, the harm. And I'm deliberately using cases
in this jurisdiction because it,it, it is global and you would
not think that it's happening in, in London, but he absolutely
does. And, and, and so I, I think a
real strong steps need to be taken.
(37:54):
This was a case called where thedefendant was, was a number of
defendants, so Pinto, Kisanga and Luanza.
And this was sort of back in 2006 again, a young girl and an
8 year old, and she was found inEast London by a street warden,
(38:18):
sitting on the steps of a flat, alone, shivering, afraid.
And she'd been labeled as a witch by her relatives, aunt,
uncle. And again, this was the belief
in witchcraft. So starve the child, starve the
evil spirit. So there was a starvation
(38:41):
deprived issued and again there was a Chili Peppers rubbed in
her eyes and the defenders were convicted of a number of counts
of child cruelty and their sentences were they were
sentenced to different between 10 and four years on in prison.
It was then an appeal against sentence, but the appeal
actually focused on some explanation or some mitigation
(39:06):
through their beliefs is that they genuinely believe the child
was a witch. And so it was put before the
Court of Appeal that the sentences should be reduced
because this was a genuine belief rather than something
which was evil coming from them.But that that to me is just a
completely misguided mitigation.It's not mitigation.
(39:26):
And we need to also see the courts really, really slamming
down on this because of the harmthat is is caused.
And the Court of Appeal said this in in that case, it said
such a belief provides no mitigation and in our judgement
does little to reduce the culpability of the offenders.
Their sentences would slightly reduce on the grounds.
But the Court of Appeal there really sort of knocked that out.
(39:50):
And then we had the report from Eleanor Stobart.
But these cases keep coming in terms of identifying, there's
obviously another aspect. And I've worked actually
training social workers in, in the you kind of worked
alongside. The National FGM Centre and
(40:11):
Barnardo's looking at signs thata child is is is perhaps being
abused through a witchcraft police.
And some of the findings from the Stobart report in particular
was at the age of these childrenwhere the witchcraft police
where they were being abused as between about 8 or 14.
(40:32):
Although it's a little difficulton that data because at the age
of 14, a kid's got agency so they can they could run away
probably at that age if they or find another way of dealing with
what's going on. And that also found that schools
are the first point of referralsand that these kids will come to
notice through signs of neglect.And that would include neglect
(40:54):
with wearing unseasonable clothing, really, really warm
clothes to overheat the person in summer, very light clothes so
that the child is very, very cold in winter, and other
neglect. And it also found that the
backgrounds of these children beincluded, a significant number
(41:15):
from the DRC, but also from Southeast Asia, from Nigeria,
from the Caribbean, and about half were born in the UK.
And in terms of carers, it foundthat in six cases the children
live with their natural parents and in 19 cases there was a step
parent or a carer in the household.
So that was taking us a predominance there in terms of
(41:37):
the care. And a common feature in terms of
behaviour of the kids which had triggered their witchcraft
belief was a difficulty of the carer accepting a difference
including a form of disability, an illness, challenging
behaviour, sleepwalking, bed wetting and bad dreams.
(41:59):
And all of these were leading toan accusation of of evil or
possession or or or or witchcraft.
And the methods to get rid of that evil included beating,
burning, starving, isolation, including removal from school.
So another sign is the kid is suddenly taken out of school and
and his disappear lost the radarand recommendations.
(42:24):
Actually from the Stobart report, we say it's quite an old
report. It's a very old report now, but
that they included child protection procedures in places
of worship. I thought that was this rather
long architect on that result tothe the places of worship again
where of course people have faith and they have confidence
and they have belief and it and it can be difficult, but there
(42:46):
needs to be more child protection looking at this
specific issue. Yeah, I we've really have had
that discussion. I'm hearing a lot today about
what success can look like. So when I think about how
massive organizations that have children and they're not
necessarily prioritizing their safety, it is really, it's like
(43:10):
it kind of seems like a no brainer, but it's I think we are
needing to follow the example ofthe National FGM Center.
They have done such a great job of collecting data and then
engaging with safeguarders across the different ways that
adults are interacting with children.
And I really learned a lot from the conference listening to them
(43:33):
discuss that project. So I hope that more can be
learned from that work. Yeah, absolutely.
And it's so important that people are linking their
different experiences because itis protecting the most
vulnerable in our society and globally.
People do want to protect children, but there's a real
(43:55):
issue here. But in the UK, coming from a
country, I mean, I was brought up in Lancashire, in the most
West of England, I was brought up with all the stories about
witches, with the Pendle witches.
And people are surprised it's still going on.
It's still going on and real serious harm is being caused to
(44:16):
people because of a witchcraft link which we all thought had
had left us back in the 1500s. But that no, it hasn't.
Thank you so very much. This has been wonderful.
It's so informative hearing fromyou with your direct involvement
in these resolutions. I probably would have.
(44:38):
Just going back to collaboration, what's been
really interesting since the UNEresolution has been that there
have been movements across the world to try and tackle harm
(45:00):
caused by witchcraft stigmatisation.
And some of those advances are, For example, in August 23, there
was a coalition of UK and Nigeria based NGOs which used
the International Day Against Witch Hunts to call for
(45:24):
government and key partners to join together to actually
implement the UN resolution on the elimination of witchcraft.
In July 2023, Ghana's MPs passeda bill criminalising witchcraft,
although it wasn't signed by thepresident.
March 23, the Pan African Parliament released its
(45:47):
guidelines on accusations of witchcraft and ritual attacks
towards eliminating harmful practices and other human right
violations. And he did this at joint
sittings of the Committee on Gender, Use, Family, People with
Disability, Committee on Health,Labour, Social Affairs,
Committee on Education, Culture,Tourism and Human Resources at
(46:08):
the PAP headquarters in Midrandi, South Africa.
So that just shows the collaboration and how this
belief in Hull goes across so many different social aspects of
society and how we lived. In 2022, there was an article by
Canadian research team recommending future research
(46:29):
that incorporate the terminologyof the resolution when gathering
data on albinism, particularly where negative myths and stick
around the condition are well documented.
In 2022, the South African Law Commission undertook a review of
the Witchcraft Suppression Act and they've been calls to pardon
and some success. I believe that you can talk
(46:49):
about, you've been talking about, which I learnt about at
the conference, and they've beencalls to pardon those
historically accused of witchcraft in the UK and that
that's ongoing. And in Scotland, in fact, there
was a near success in getting that through and it was a
political change. And so no doubt be picked up
again. And I'm very interested in the
(47:10):
course of pardon for the Lancashire witches, which let's
say was where I was brought up. And there was these terribly
unfair trials and terribly awfulaccusations.
And these people were killed, which we look back on now and we
see that they were unlawfully killed.
And it'll be good to get recognition perhaps of, of, of
(47:33):
what happened to them in the same way as happened in
Connecticut. So perhaps those are some,
perhaps those are some steps that that bring back to people
on the national domestic level what it means.
And then if you draw it up to the modern day and make people
(47:53):
just look frankly and directly at what's going on now and the
harm and the killings been murdered that are happening now,
the cruelty that's happening nowwhen this belief is translated
into into harm. And then hopefully people can
draw from the lessons of the past and realize that it's time
again to really bring an end to it.
(48:16):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Witch Hunt.
We will. Have more for you next week.
Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
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