UN
Puts Witchcraft Center Stage
The
NEWS (Monrovia)
NEWS
3
April 2008
Posted to the web 3 April 2008
By
Robbie Semple/Intern
Monrovia Deputy
UN envoy for Rule of Law, Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu on Wednesday put witchcraft center
stage in the fight to improve human rights in Liberia. Speaking
at the launch of the "Report on the Human Rights Situation in Liberia, May
- October 2007" at the UN Mission headquarters in Monrovia, Mensa-Bonsu focused
her speech on "the troubling and continuing problem of witchcraft."
She drew on
examples from the report (which is an amalgamation of the two most recent quarterly
reports from the UN Human Rights and Protection Section (HRPS)) of families torn
apart, and profiteering "witch finders" to strengthen her case. In
May in Bong Mines, a five-year-old boy was killed by an ex-combatant. The report
alleges that two relatives paid the man to kill the boy as revenge for witchcraft,
after a medicine man identified his grandmother as a witch. In
Barzoe Town, Montserrado County last October, a witch finder was paid US$160 by
residents to "remove impediments to the town's development." Four locals
were forced to flee after being accused of stopping the area's growth by witchcraft.
On reporting the incident to the police however, they were informed that the finder
could not be arrested, as the ritual had been authorized by the Ministry of Internal
Affairs. The
report calls on the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Justice to:
"Identify traditional practices in Liberia that violate fundamental human
rights standards with a view to enacting legislation that clearly prohibits such
practices and (renders them) punishable by law." When
quizzed about what the UN were doing to stamp out such human rights violations,
Mensa-Bonsu insisted the onus is on Liberians to carry the fight. She
claimed that by providing information the UN is "empowering Liberians to
effect social change." Though
a number of ministers were asked for their opinion on the report, including those
responsible for Justice, Health, Education and Gender, all declined to comment.
Eugene Nindorera, chief of the HRPS did not see this as a problem however. "We
are not worried about comments, we want to see action," Nindorera proclaimed.
He commended the decision of the police force to dismiss seventy officers for
persistent absence, and the release of four alleged witches from prison after
a year's incarceration without trial, as examples of positive action. UN
Mission pledged its continuing support to the government and the Liberian people
in eliminating fundamental human rights abuses. "Our
role is to let communities see the unfairness of it all, and let the legal community
sit up and take action," Nindorera pointed out. Recently,
the government released several persons in Southeastern Liberia who were being
detained in connection to "witchcraft activities".
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