Subtitled: Someone dreamed I wanted to kill him, in his dream I had a weapon

 

It was evening, there was no one at home except another woman and I

 

Off screen, half heard

 

…send her to a diviner..

the only thing we can do right now is to…

 

[heavy breathing, running sounds, woman yelps, men shouting]

 

kill her

 

[beating sounds and screams]

 

Title cards

 

In parts of Northern Ghana, poverty, ignorance and fear lead to extreme abuse and exile of people accused of ‘witchcraft’

 

Many are killed or die later from their injuries.

 

Some survivors make their way to one of six ‘Witches’ camps’ across Northern Ghana

 

Title:

‘What I Used to Know – the Road to Ghana’s Witches’ Camps’

 

[thunderclap]

 

background radio

.. don’t you know,

It’s the super morning show

99.7, 99.7

 

name card:

Zenabu Sakibu

SOSYWEN Witches’ Camps Integration Project Co-ordinator.

 

background radio

She was taken to Sirgo in the Kassena Nankana district in the Upper east Region here,

To a soothsayer for about five days without food or water. “ When it’s raining they would ask me to stand on a broom and hold a knife to swear, they were still keeping me in the house, accusing me of being a witch..”

 

A murder trial is currently underway in the Ghanaian port of Tema, where three women and two men are accused of setting fire to a 72 year old grandmother, who they believed to be a witch. Police claim the suspects tortured a confession of witchcraft out of Mrs Amma Hema, doused her with kerosene, and set her alight. She died of her injuries the following day.

 

Voiceover: When you ask a Ghanaian what witch craft is they would tell you that it is usually practised by women and then that it is the use of juju or magical powers to do something bad or evil to somebody else. 

 

If we are to know somebody is a witch we have specific things we see in them, they appear in our dreams, somebody can appear in your dream by so many kinds of things, they can turn into trees, turn into animals so many types of animals and come and attack you personally.

 

When she bewitched her colleague woman she kept a pot in the stomach of the colleague woman, before we realised the pot came out of the colleague woman.

 

We have ever beaten them and accused them and finally they themselves confess as a witch. When they accuse you here as a witch we will not leave you.

 

Name card: Bugri, Gambaga Camp.

 

They wanted to kill me so I ran away in the night to the chief, if they don’t catch me can they kill me?

 

It’s quite heartbreaking when a place with such harsh conditions is their only refuge, it shouldn’t be that way. For those who are enlightened and know that you can resort to the police to report cases of abuse, they will take that up but at the local very basic level how can we go about changing things so that people are treated more humanely.

 

Name card: Kukuo ‘Witches Camp’ North Nanumba district Estimated population: 130 adults, 171 children.

 

We are just arriving in Kukuo camp which is very close to Bimbilla, we are here to see the chief who has been very supportive of our work as well as the women in the camp.

 

 

Name card: Iddrisu Mahami, Regent, Kukuo.

 

There used to be witch craft but now with modernisation accusation comes from lies. 

If someone doesn’t like you they just call you a witch. But it is a worry to us. When they beat someone and bring them to the chiefs palace, we have to accept the person and find a place for him or her to stay. We are praying for help to change perceptions in the community where people are being accused of witchcraft, not only here but in other places where the camps exist, we should be serious and save our women from accusations.  

 

Treacherous roads to get to them....we’re just entering the Gnani witch camp.....

 

Name card: Ngani Witches camp Yendi Municipality est pop 750 adults, 400 children.

 

People who are generally educated and know their rights never get accused of any witch craft, it usually those who are poor illiterate, who don’t know what their rights are. 

 

Antirai Gnaaa!

 

Its usually old woman, old, poor women who have absolutely nobody, who are usually accused of witch craft.

 

Name card: grandmother Ngani Camp

 

Subtitled: My husbands son battered me, we were neighbours, my niece had a child and was not producing breast milk, so other people were breast feeding the child, she used to say she dreamed about me at night, they said I wanted to kill them. The man started hitting me on the head, they were pulling me about and banging my head on the ground. They laid me on a fresh grave, I lay there for a long time I felt that as I was put ona grave it would be good if I died, if they accused me of something so bad then it would be fine to die. 

 

 

Even when you are beating her she will never agree that she has the sick person under her spiritual care, until she is just sick of the beating then she confesses.

 

Is it not possible that because I know you are going to beat me and if I don’t say something you will beat me to death, don’t you think that is the reason why I will eventually have to say that it is true I bewitched the child? So that you will leave me alone and take me there,

 

Name card: George Akanlo District Director, ISD Gambaga.

 

Here the project is talking about ...initially it was about how to eliminate the witches camps but we quickly realised that that objective had to be changed because the people are not even aware of what to do, whether to even stop the witch craft accusations so we geared our attention towards “ok let’s talk about stopping the brutalities” but when you now look at these communities from all the communities I’ve visited, you realise that when you talk they quickly accept oh we will stop., as to whether they will do what they have said is a different ball game altogether. It needs a lot of work to even get them to accept that the brutalities are unlawful in the first place.

 

Music

 

 

Voiceover: Ghana was the first country south of the Sahara to be independent, we’ve made some progress with our development but there’s still a lot more work to be done, and a lot more work to be done to help women. We do a lot of training and capacity building, workshops, going to communities to talk to them, sensitisation durbars, and also targeted workshops for different members of the community.

 

We don’t call them witches we call them alleged witches, women as human beings are also supposed to enjoy their entitlements as human beings,

 

Name card: Abbas Yakubu, District Director, CHRAJ Yendi

 

The period even before the menopause, what we call the period menopausal ere, you will go through a lot of tension, you will sweat a lot

 

Name card: Anthony Sopaa;. Health Service

 

You complain a lot of very small things, you will shout at your children you will have bad dreams, sometimes you can say something and it will happen. If a relative of yours has been accused send the person for medical check up it’s most likely that this person has a medical condition that makes him or her behave in such a manner that people would call them a witch.

 

Men are the head so the family so if women are in the family, even if you are older than the man, the man will be ruling you, that is why the problems lie on the women more than the men.

 

Music

 

Voiceover: As a woman living in Ghana I know that not that many women have risen to positions where they can make a difference in their communities, and I feel that each woman who has attained that position should be able to help and give back to their communities.

 

Name Card:  Ngani Witches Camp

 

My name is Yadu. I don’t want to be here. I was accused of killing my brother’s child, I don’t have it in me to hate a human being made of flesh like me, I never think of killing somebody. They said they’d bring me to the shrine to drink a concoction. Somebody decided I was a witch, my heart is dead and what I used to know I don’t anymore, even talking of it is difficult for me,  I don’t have my children with me, there’s no one I can send for water, I don’t have any weapon to fight the accusation, when someone is supporting you, you can’t be treated like this.   

 

I’m the Yaa Naa paramount chief for all Dagbon women,  and my official title is Gundu Naa, Queen Mother.  I’m not happy when they call somebody a witch thought I’m the paramount chief of women I can’t stop the practice, but if I’m in my palace when an accused person is brought I will tell accusers not to beat them. We should learn to love each other that is the wisdom I am telling you because I need peace in my community.

 

Drumming

 

The people who accuse you believe in the system that will prove you innocent or guilty, somehow they are not able to accept it when the verdict comes back that you are innocent.

 

Singing, drums, sound

 

What I know of the witch craft spirit is that it is invisible like the blowing wind

 

If they accuse you, and they believe that the fetish priest is the one that can prove you innocent or guilty, and they march you to him....

 

Chanting/incantations

 

Why can’t they accept it and say ‘oh right, then I was wrong’ but then they say ‘ no I still don’t accept that you’re innocent, you’re the one,  you’re the one so we don’t want you in the village anymore. ‘

 

Incantations

 

I don’t see the spirit myself but the shrine sees it

 

Once the accusation goes out, you’re damned whether you are innocent or guilty.

 

It’s their mouths that get women in trouble, so if your mouth gets you in trouble and you’re sent here you must stay.

 

Name Card: Wole, Fetish Priest, Ngani Camp

 

Over a month I can receive about 5 alleged witches in the camp, I feed them and the families take some of them home. I continue the work of my forefathers, we work with accused witches and we also bless people. Some of them hide the fact that they have the witch craft spirit so when we kill the fowl and give them the concoction they die.

 

Call to prayer at the mosque

 

Voiceover: Because there’s so much poverty and illiteracy in northern Ghana,  and of course Ghanaians are also very spiritual and believe in god and believe in evil spirits and so on you find that people want to find answers to their problems, solutions to their problems any which way they can. At that level going to the shrine going to the soothsayers is their only resort.

 

Preachers on tv: Bring back that body from the witches world!

 

Somebody is sending demonic forces....

 

Make sure you get your copies of this book...

 

Voiceover: Poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, have been some of the challenges that have faced us, with education they would realise that not everything is caused by witch craft.

 

Preacher: You witch!

 

Voiceover: Not everything negative is caused by witch craft.

 

Name card: Marwen, Ngani Camp

 

When I’m sleeping and I remember the attack, I can’t sleep anymore. Someone dreamed I wanted to kill him, in his dream I had a weapon. They had thought I was a witch for ages, but I didn’t even know. When he battered me, I was unable to get up. As you can see I’m sitting as I can no longer walk, I feel pain all over my waist and legs and I can no longer walk. There were two of us the other one killed herself, she was fed up with the situation and she killed herself and was buried, I think I will die here, I ask myself how my own kin could do this to me.

 

Voiceover: And here she is with no family around her, she can’t move she can’t get anything for herself, it’s really bad, I mean there’s no excuse for it, culture or no, it’s not, there’s no excuse for it.

 

The constitution recognises cultural practices but those that are negative, those that dehumanise, are no longer acceptable in modern day life. 

 

Title card: “All customary practices which dehumanise or are injurious to the physical and mental well being of a person are prohibited.” Ghana Constitution, Chapter 5.

 

Music

 

Voiceover: The traditional leadership is the main target because they are of course students of the traditions and culture of the people here.

 

Name card: Welvis Hudu Adam, Community and youth development advocate - Yendi

 

When you get these people on board and make them to appreciate the need for us to stop branding people witches and wizards, if they buy the idea that’s all the whole society will take it.

 

The law does not back this witch craft wizard affair, the law doesn’t back it, it has no legal backing

 

Name card: Alexander Kyeremeh, CID Officer, Ghana Police Force, Bimbilla.

 

I don’t know why you should tell your fellow women or man that you are a witch... what accounts...

 

Name Card: Alhaji Abukari Aliu, Imam, Bimbilla

 

As an Imam in the community my role is to educate the public the Muslim, it’s a Muslim community. The view of the Islamic teachings on the witch craft is the witch craft is real but it is something that you cannot see physically, so you don’t have to act when it happens you don’t have to take the aw into your own hands and then do whatever you want.

 

Music

 

Voiceover: In doing this work we’ve realised that the children in the camps are denied their education, one because of stigma attached to their grandmothers they’re living with and then also that their grandmothers cannot care for them because they have no funds to send them to school.

 

They weren’t able to kill me so they killed my son, leaving the children I have some of them here with me, how can I be happy? I buy food for them and so how can I also pay for their schooling?

 

If I had the chance I would go to school, I want to be a nurse.

 

Title card: Npon, Ngani with Camp

 

People said I was a witch and used my children’s souls to get rich, when my children died I wanted to die too, others thought I should kill myself when I didn’t they brought me here, I don’t want anyone else to suffer like we do, they should be free.

 

We’ve heard so many stories of women who’ve been abused and it’s very heartbreaking, this is a situation that we must bring to the attention of the authorities, the department of social welfare the ministry of women and children’s affairs and any organisation that is an institution that has a say in what happens in these camps, some of the stories were very every heartbreaking and we think this is a situation that we have to do something about.

 

Voiceover: We would hope that we would be able to get some funding to able to establish some schools, or day care centres, we would also like to see that young women in the camps so that they can earn a living and be able to support their families in the camps.

 

    

Do you know if it’s possible? I mean do you know which day it would be possible to come?

 

Voiceover: I’ve tried to contact the ministry of women’s and children’s affairs to tell them about the work we’re doing and ask if there’s any way that there can be any collaboration...

 

My organisation  essentially works with women and youth so being as that is the ministry of women’s and children’s affairs I just wanted to have some discussions with...

 

Sosywen – the southern sector women’s and youth empowerment network, we’re working with women and youth, women and youth...

 

Voiceover: It’s been very challenging the hierarchy of bureaucracy that exists in Ghana is really really bad. I feel nothing is being done or not enough is being done, government is reneging on it’s responsibility to these vulnerable people in society, we acknowledge that it’s a very long process these are traditions and beliefs that people have held for a very long time, and so change will be very gradual, something has to be and has to be done fast.

 

 

When it rains from this direction water comes into the hut.

This is where I sleep, I use this mat, when it rains I just lie down.

 

Music

 

Credits

 

End.