People need to be educated to stop attributing misfortunes to witchcraft
The Executive Director of the Sanneh Institute at the University of Ghana, Professor John Azumah has called for the criminalization of witchcraft accusations in Ghana.
This is one of the ways in addressing the menace of witchcraft accusations in the oil-rich West African country.
Professor Azumah said the people must also be educated on the problems facing humanity in order to avoid blaming everything on witchcraft.
There is the need “to criminalize witchcraft accusations,” he said at a forum organized by 3FM 92.7 in collaboration with the Sanneh Institute to revive the conversation on this all-important issue of accusing innocent women of witchcraft, on Friday, July 23.
He further revealed their study has revealed that about 95 per cent of the people who are accused of witchcraft are mostly Konkombas and Dagombas.
That does not mean there are no accusations in other parts of the country.
“Of all the victims that we found in the camp, the 95 per cent come from two ethnic groups, Konkombas and Dagomba ethnic groups,” he said.
He added “It is very important to know that and to tailor the education to these areas. That does not mean there are no accusations in other parts,”
Today Friday, July 23 will be exactly a year 90-year-old Madam Akua Denteh was lynched. Viral videos emerged of the horrific lynching of an elderly woman, Akua Denteh, alleged to be a witch by some persons in the Kafaba community, after being blamed for being behind the retarded development in the community.
She denied the accusations but some youth in the community got enraged, following which they invited a self-styled soothsayer, Serena Mohammed, a resident of Yeji, to perform an exorcism on her and some twenty-three other women within the Savannah region.
In the videos, the late Akua Denteh was seen being tortured by other women, under the supervision of Serena Mohammed until she became unconscious, leading to her death.
So far, seven persons have been arrested by the police, with six of them in police custody.
She has since been buried in line with Islamic tradition.
The gruesome lynching of Akua Denteh sparked national outrage but a year on, more women are being accused of witchcraft.