बोक्सिको आरोप लाउदै यस्तरी महिलालाई लुसियो । कहिले हट्ने अन्धबिश्वास ,भिडियो हेरी ,जनचेतनाकालागी सक्दो शेहर गरौ।

In one of my earlier posts I wrote about the work that PPR Nepal does. What I didn’t mention there, but what is one of my focus points during this journey is the accusation and persecution of so-called witches.

When we in the West hear about witches, most of us will think about the witches in fairytales. Here in Nepal we are talking about ordinary women. Ordinary women like a neighbour or a widow or someone else that has been living in the same village for decades. In Nepal – and other places like India, Papua New Guinea and many parts of Africa – these ordinary women are blamed for losses that befall the village. Examples why people point to a witch are the loss of a child, a bad harvest or any kind of public health crisis.

After for example someone’s child dies and people start accusing one of the elder women in the village (most cases concern women over 30, with an average life expectancy of 64), that women can get maimed, tortured, fed excrement and and even burned. And in case this women has a husband that dares to come up for his wife, he also gets blamed for all the misfortunes that happened. The only option for these women is to flee their village (in time).

Unfortunately most women that are accused of being a witch, don’t seek legal remedies (it is estimated that only 20% does so). Not only does this mean that those women wont’t get any compensation, but it also makes it hard to estimate the number of cases. According to the Nepalese National Women’s Commission there were an reported 43 incidents related to the accusation of witchcraft between 2011 and 2012