Chairperson, the issue of witchcraft has and continues to be a subject of contention in many societies. And here in South Africa 14 years into our democracy vast numbers of people in their communities are still victims of witchcraft accusations and in some instances there have been cases of lost lives.
The members of communities that are severely affected are women. For instance, in his book The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe, published in 1987 Levack writes on page 11 that the witchcraft accusations that were prevalent in Europe tended to produce large numbers of criminals and innocent victims of a deluded judiciary system and an oppressive legal system.
Levack further notes that the years 1542 to 1735 formed a period of English history when witchcraft remained a statutory crime punishable by death. Moreover, these years marked a significant increase in the number of witch- hunts and prosecutions.
Shocking as this statement is, it shows that contrary to some common generalisations the belief in witchcraft was not exclusively African. It has been a problem that haunted many societies for decades and is unfortunately still prevalent in many societies today. According to Reuters, 23 September 2009, the murder and persecution of women and children accused of being witches is spreading around the world and destroying the lives of millions of people.
Regarding the role of gender in witchcraft accusations, as already indicated, in incidences of witchcraft accusations within the community, women are the victims and communities, through vigilante groups or mobs, often attack the accused women. Following such accusations, the victims are brought to community meetings if lucky, but in most cases the mob burns their property and in some cases end up burning the accused or beating them to death.
The most striking thing about the women accused of witchcraft is that there has never been a point at which any accuser or member of the community provided any substantial evidence to prove their accusations. The only thing that is common in these kinds of witchcraft accusations is that members of the community often associate witchcraft with the physical features of the accused. The features indicated include women that are not good-looking, women that are old and women that are too dark in complexion, amongst others.
Most women that are victims of witchcraft accusations are often found in rural communities where poverty is rife. In urban areas, it is not common to find incidents of mob killings based on witchcraft accusations. In addition, where physical features are not a factor, jealousy also seems to fuel accusations of witchcraft directed at women whose families are doing well and are more successful.
Writing about witchcraft, Karlsen asserts in her 1998 book The Devil in the Shape of a Woman that there is a tendency in most societies to associate witchcraft with women rather than men. Although it is not clear as to why society tends to hold this perception, statistics show that witchcraft accusations tend to be directed at women. To illustrate this, Karlsen draws from the historical data of witchcraft cases in New England: of the 344 cases in which residents of New England were accused of witchcraft between the years 1620 and 1725, it emerged that 78% were female, and that roughly half of the accused men were husbands, sons or friends of female witches; that the majority were over the age of 40, that is past child-bearing age; and single, widowed or divorced women were proportionately over-represented among those accused of witchcraft.
In reference to our country, Singer, in 2000, in an article in the Christian Science Monitor also showed that more women, as compared to men, tend to be accused of witchcraft. To illustrate the gravity of the problem in South Africa, Singer used the Limpopo experience as an example, where he writes that:
More than 500 people, mostly women, were accused of witchcraft and killed by mobs here between 1990 and 1995. Even more lost their homes and their possessions when they were either run out of town or had their homes torched.
Such incidents were also rife in Mopani and Vhembe in Limpopo in our country. This led to an international conference on witchcraft held in June 1988 at the University of Venda in the Vhembe district, attended by various stakeholders whose resolutions and recommendations should be pursued.
Notwithstanding the various pieces of legislation on witchcraft suppressions that were passed early at 1735 in England and 1957 in South Africa to deal with the problem, women continue to bear the brunt and stigma of being labelled witches in our society. Ironically, the word "witch", strictly used for females, is more frequently used than "wizard" referring to males, to describe the act of witchcraft.
For instance, the image of women who breastfeed their children for witchcraft purposes is common in African witchcraft stories and folklore, hence serious acts of witchcraft are described as having being inherited from the mother rather than the father. For example, there are common statements like "sucking witchcraft from the mother's breast". It is dangerous statements like these that reinforce societal beliefs about women as symbols of witchcraft. Unless one is reading Harry Potter, in most movies or books the character of a witch is normally played by a woman.
Throughout history, women were seen as lower-ranked people and also possessing a greater instinct for evil than men. This means that whenever they attempted to be equal to men, they had to be a witch. As already indicated, the term "witch" is also an image of women, and thus made them even more accusable. Historically, most natural healers were women not men, and so were accused of being witches because of their different healing methods.
Women have often been made scapegoats throughout history, mainly because they were vulnerable and could not defend themselves. Drawing from the Salem experience, Karlsen, in 1998, notes that there was a correlation between witchcraft and aberrations in the traditional line of property transmission. She notes that property, particularly land, typically went to the male relatives after the death of a parent. In the cases of many women who were accused of witchcraft Karlsen discovered a pattern of women standing to inherit in the absence of male heirs.
It is clear from these issues that are raised here that accusations of witchcraft have mostly been based on an attempt by society to oppress and suppress women. Portraying the image of a woman as more prone to evil has always been used as a basis for justifying why women should not participate in, or benefit from, certain societal initiatives. For example, there are customs that do not allow women to go to the graveyard when someone has died because of an accident instead of natural causes. Given some of the reasons already stated, it has become more convenient to point at women as witches.
Regarding the beatings and burning, the media abound with stories of women in various communities in our country who have been beaten up after they had been accused of witchcraft. In the worst cases women have been burned to death on the basis of witchcraft accusations that are not verifiable.
In some communities throughout Africa, when someone has been identified as a witch, they are often banished from the community or, worse still, in some parts of Africa imprisoned without trial. This negatively affects women and children who are often at the receiving end of such injustices.
It was recommended that the issue of killings and destruction of property by community mobs, so-called mob justice, cannot go unchallenged where women lose their lives and property and leave their children orphaned because of perpetrators whose accusations are not based on fact or proof.
South Africa is a democratic country with a supreme Constitution that, through the Bill of Rights, accords every individual living in this country the right to life without fear of intimidation or being subjected to unfair discrimination on the basis of their gender, culture, physical appearance, conscience or belief.
The state is supposed to respect, protect, promote and fulfil each individual's rights as stated in the Constitution's Bill of Rights, and yet in this country we still have mob justice where defenceless women are robbed of the right to life by being brutally assaulted and killed on the basis of suspicion.
Despite the Constitution guaranteeing every individual in the country the right to a fair trial, where everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty, most women accused of witchcraft are never given the chance of a fair trial before a court of law or even traditional authorities. Instead, mobs take the law into their own hands, and little is being done about the issue.
The fact that most of these atrocities happen in rural areas to illiterate rural women who do not know their rights, makes the problem even more worthy of discussion and attention. It is therefore in this light that I am forwarding the following recommendations in order to address this issue of continuously persecuting and killing women on the basis of unfounded accusations of witchcraft.
There is a need to educate society on the problem of engendering witchcraft and its dangers, as well as the associated discrimination against women. This education should also form part of the curricula on gender studies in schools as well as in institutions of higher learning.
Communities and traditional leaders should be engaged through workshops and capacity-building through training programmes in order to dispel the myth that women are witches because they are widowed, too dark, old or not good- looking. Everybody must be educated about the Constitution and the rights of citizens.
The media in all forms must be actively and appropriately utilised to educate society about the dangers of engendering witchcraft instead of just reporting stories of people who got killed or banished from their homes because of witchcraft accusations.
These endeavours will assist in changing the stereotypes that portray women as witches who should be assaulted or killed. Thank you. [Applause.]
Debate concluded.