Witchcraft Accusations; Deep Rooted Culture of Injustice

Deeply rooted in some communities especially in Northern Ghana is the belief that, some people are witches and as such are relegated to the confines of witch camps. These allegations which is meted out especially to women comes as a results of being poor, widows, the aged, barren, mental disorder, differently abled, and those who seemed to be challenging the status quo. Several people are accused of witchcraft by relatives or members of their community and in most cases, these alleged witches are even the lucky ones to reach the camps without being lynched in mob justice. The moment there's suspicion of witchcraft, they person is either lynched to death or as i sated earlier, sent to camps to spend the rest of their life.

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When misfortune hits a community, the tendency of pointing fingers on an innocent old woman is high. In these communities, women(mostly) are accused, assaulted, ridiculed, ostracize, and exiled to camps without coming back to their community again. The fortunate ones are usually are given young girls from the same family to accompanied them in the camps and be helping and sending them. The unfortunate thing is that, these young girl are accused of being default witches when anytime the old women passes on. Those accused have to endue stigmatization for the rest of their life even after the so called traditional priest clears them of witchcraft, they are still not accepted by the society.

The existence of the camps and the accusations that send these people mostly (women) are a reflection of the status of Women and girls in the Ghanaian society. These alleged witches are left on their on in camps where their best source of livelihood is to sell firewood. Some women are force to admit to a crime in other to save themselves from being lynched.

As a nation have we asked ourselves why there more women in witch cams then men? The answer is simple and straight forward. Women are vulnerable entrap in culture man himself has woven around him. Yes in this 21st century, women are accused as witches because they are wealthy than the men in the family and are challenging the status-quo of male dominated society.

I believe measures can be adopted to empower these alleged witches in the form of skills and vocational training. However, these alleged witches should be allowed to choose from a variety of vocation and programs that they wish to learn. As they are allowed to choose from a variety of skills preference, they are always committed to doing such work and will help bridge the gap of economic inequality.

This empowerment would help these alleged witches who are mostly women to be lift from being in an economic handicap and vulnerable because vulnerability, is the underlying basis for witchcraft accusations. Efforts have been done to disband these camps but because the society and families are not ready to accept them back to the society, the camps serves as a safe haven for them. I do not intend to mock some cultural practices and beliefs, but the truth is that, our society is still counted among the poor, uneducated because of squabbling among us in pointing fingers at our mothers as witches. As a Muslim and African, I believe in the existence of spirits and witches but this does not mean i should accuse someone of it when in reality, no one can measure or define who is a witch.

Going forward, I believe community should accept and integrate them back to the society because there's no witchcraft worst than discriminations. On the part of the community, interpersonal communication can be used to strengthen dialogues with religious leaders, traditional leaders and opinion leaders to enact legal framework needed to properly address witchcraft allegations.

As a communications student, I believe the use of multidimensional approach of interpersonal, group and mass communication as a tool to bring about social change to the alleged witches would be the best approach. Development communication tool that entails motivating and mocking the society in a satirical way is the best.
Group communication can be come in the form of drama, stage act etc. allowing community where accusation is on the rise to participate and use as characters. Community members should be educated in drama why there’s the need to stop stigmatization of these witches and its negative effect.

This helps the community to shun their former way of seeing these alleged witches. Drama entails change and thus can used to plea to the mind of the people. Drama will allow the target community to participate during the exposition, the conflict and resolution of the play. Drama can be used as a tool to criticize, correct, assist and raise people’s awareness about the negative impact of stigmatization and the need to reintegrate the alleged witches back to the community. Drama allows more to be done than said and allows community to be involved in social change that is purposive, pragmatic and results oriented.

I believe this deep rooted culture can be rooted-out from the society despite the long history behind it. Our society should grow beyond the pettiness of accusing innocent women of witchcraft and hold the right authorities responsible for their predicament