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It was Pakpema Blegs own family
who first accused her of practicing witchcraft. Her nephew had
accidentally pricked his finger on a needle, and the finger swelled
up with infection. Bleg hadnt been there. But the next morning,
she says, her brother-in-law arrived outside her house. Witch!
he allegedly bellowed for all her neighbors to hear. Witch!
Then, her nephews older brother began beating her, she says,
and soon others in the village joined in.
A soothsayer was asked to conduct the ritual test that determines
the guilt or innocence of the accused. Slitting the throat of
a fowl over a shrine, he threw the dying bird into the air. If
the fowl were to fall on its back, it would indicate her innocence;
were it to fall on its front, it would prove that Bleg was a witch.
The bird fell on its front. I ran, Bleg recalls. I
knew if I didnt, they would kill me.
Bleg fled to Gnani, one of northern Ghanas witch
camps, where many of the more than 900 accused people tell a similar
tale. Like Bleg, theyve been tried, Salem style, their fates
sealed by testimony offered by neighbors and relatives, their
guilt or innocence determined by a priest.
In parts of Africa, belief in witchcraft
still prevails. In Ghana, especially on the vast flat savanna
of the countrys northern region near the border with Togo,
it is endemic. Ailments, insanity, misfortune, or death can be
blamed on black magic. Witches supposedly do their dark deeds
at night, using their supernatural powers, or juju,
sometimes taking the form of animals as they possess souls, inflict
illnesses, or curse innocent children. Locals believe witches
can glow like fireflies and walk upside down.
In some places, witch hunts are rampant. Sometimes they
beat the person to the extent of lynchingits barbaric,
says Abass Yakubu, who runs the governments Commission on
Human Rights and Administrative Justice in the regional capital
of Yendi. The accused cannot take the risk of staying on
in their homes. They will never lose the stigma. In one
village, persecution of suspected witches is particularly bad,
he adds. There, even a strange stare can elicit a charge
of witchcraft.
Since such accusations can quickly translate into violence, many
victims flee as soon as the charges are leveled. Every week, someone
flees a violent mob and seeks refuge at Gnani, the largest of
five camps in the region, according to Yakubu. The camp, which
also houses family members and advocates of the accused, has become
a community of exiles or inmates of sorts. Banished from their
communities, the accused are left to fend for themselves. Most
of them are women; some arrive by bus or car, or are dropped off
by family members, keen to remove them from village vitriol; others
have walked long miles on foot with cooking pots on their heads.
There are many women in the camps who have had terrible
violence inflicted on them, using stones and machetes, says
Spalidu Mahamah, a project officer for the Southern Sector Youth
and Womens Empowerment Network, an NGO that works with residents
in the camps. (Mahamahs father is also the chief of the
village.) Theyve had to run in order to save themselves.
Sometimes they have broken arms, broken legs, and punctured eyes.
The camp, though, is no secular, state-run refuge. Rather, its
origins are drawn from the same superstitions that fuel the persecutions.
A soothsayer runs the camp, presiding over residents from a shrine
perched on a dusty incline. The campground itself is thought to
be purified land, a place where witches lose their powers. Every
new arrival must pay the priest, Nwini Binamba, up to 60 Ghanaian
cedi, about 29, and go through (another) hen-slaughtering
ritual to find out whether she is guilty as charged. Finally,
she will drink a secret concoction prepared with the blood of
the dead fowl to disable her powers. Some come to me and
say, I am a witch. Please purify me. Others deny it,
says 75-year-old Binamba, who describes his power as an inheritance
from his forefathers, and the ritual itself as a miracle.
Seated on his chiefs chair under a giant baobab tree, he
wears a white lambs-wool blazer and turquoise hat as his
19-year-old son, Joseph, translates. Its a tradition
that these sisters should live here, he says. Their
powers can do no harm on this land. My only hope is that I can
provide for them.
But even a casual survey of the camp reveals a place of hardship.
Gnani has no sanitation, no electricity, and no functioning wells.
Even elderly women have to walk miles to the nearest stream to
collect water. The accused is allowed a small thatched hutusually
built with help from families or the priest and his sonsand
the conditions are sparse, cramped, and destitute. Women survive
by rearing chickens, collecting and selling firewood, or working
nearby farmland in exchange for maize, cassava, and yams. Aid
agencies have helped the community plant maize stock around their
huts, and, on a recent visit, green shoots of sprouts dotted the
land. During the height of summer, though, the place is unforgivingtemperatures
reach up to 48 degrees Celsius. I am strong, so I can gather
wood and sell it, says Bleg. But for some, it is very
hard to survive.
Dressed in colorful wax-cloth dresses, dozens of residents gather
under the canopy of an old mango tree in the center of the village
to tell their stories. There are elderly grandmothers who cant
remember how long theyve been here, and mothers who fled
with children in tow. Boys as young as 8 work the landthere
is no school for them at the campand even the youngest are
touched by the stigma of witchcraft, according to Mahamah, the
project officer. According to the local beliefs, the grandmother
can easily pass the powers to the child. Zenabu Sakibu,
a director with the same NGO as Mahamah, says the social trauma
endured by the women cant be underestimated. Some
of them have lost the will to live. They are broken.
An accusation of witchcraft often has little to do with sorceryrather,
its a way of settling scores. Many of the women in the camp
tell stories of neighbors envy over sudden success. I
was doing well, says Barkisu Adam, a 45-year-old mother
of four, who managed to collect so much charcoal she had to hire
a truck to transport it. Doing well apparently triggered the jealousy
of another woman, who allegedly accused Adam of causing the death
of a neighbors child. She burned my firewood to ashes
before I could sell it, Adam recalls. They hated my
success and wanted to drive me away from my husband.
In other cases, financial gains have been attributed to the use
of black magic. We had a case where a woman had four children
who all died, and the whole community believed that she had bewitched
her children, says Sakibu. They said she had sacrificed
their souls so she could make money.
Fractures within a polygamous marriage can also trigger accusations
of witchcraft. One woman says she was accused by one of her husbands
other wives of inflicting lalaga on her daughter. Lalaga
is a disease; its when you cant balance pots on your
head, she explains. Her daughter blamed me and said
I had bewitched her. It was why she couldnt carry water.
How was this my fault?
She believes the accusations were motivated by envy. Her husband
favored her, she says, and until her rivals challenge, she
earned good money frying yams by the roadside. It was not
the whole village that came to banish me, she recalls, it
was her alone. But still I had to leave. My brother brought me
here by car. The moment I left, she took up the very same spot
in the village, frying yams. I heard shes not doing so well,
she says, adding: I am innocent. I am not a witch. I am
a Muslim.?Not everyone, however, protests their innocence.
Some actually believe that they are witches.
I inherited my powers from my grandfather, says Uposagn,
a man accused of wizardry after the death of a child in his community.
The local soothsayer, he says, led a procession carrying the open
casket door to door as they looked for a culprit. They arrived
at my hut at dusk, says Uposagn, who didnt give his
last name. By nightfall, I was running, pursued by a mob
with machetes. They hit me with clubs and tried to kill me,
he adds, showing scars and a concave groove in his head. Yet,
he doesnt know if he was indeed to blame for the death.
I dont know if I killed that child. I dont know
if my juju goes out at night killing people. What can I do? I
know I am safer here in Gnani. My powers dont work here.
We are all safe.
Yendis divisional police commander, George Kumah, is all
too familiar with the violence wrought by accusations of witchcraft.
We have a man in custody who killed his mother for being
a witch, he says. A soothsayer had told him all his
problems in life had stemmed from her. He went and attacked her
with his bare hands, and she died shortly after.
Kumahs men arrested the soothsayer who spurred on the son.
The accusation of witchcraft constitutes character defamation,
says Kumah. While the government has made official statements
to condemn the persecution of people accused of witchcraft, legislation
is still less than clear. We do not believe in witchcraft
here, says Kumah.
At the Human Rights bureau in Yendi, Yakubu is adamant that educational
programs have improved knowledge of the problem. He himself has
helped 10 women reintegrate into society during the past year.
I bring together the accusers and the accused and try to
resolve the problems here in this office, he says. We
remind them that the Constitution is for all ... that the rule
of law is important and that these unfortunate women have rights.
But there are those who insist the problem is difficult to uproot.
These beliefs are very powerful in Ghanaand not just
in the northern region, says Sakibu, the NGO worker. While
there may not be camps in the south, there are Christian churches
that exorcize women of witchcraft. They take them to prayer
camps. You find the women chained to beds, being starved, or forced
to fast and repent to exorcize them of their supposed witchcraft.
Only last year, a woman was burnt to death near Accra after a
mob set upon her.
Life may not be easy in Gnani, but at least the camps
residents have escaped alive. Bleg, for one, says she is never
going back to her village, which is just eight kilometers away.
If anyone gets sick, I will be to blame. They will kill
me. I feel safe here. When someone dies, we sing and dance. We
dont accuse, point fingers, or blame the black spirits.
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Grove is a London-based journalist who has reported from Ethiopia,
Kenya, Egypt, and Somalia.