Another example of accusations of Witchcraft being an easy excuse to persecute someone, sent in by a Wiccan minion. (Story credited to Reuters.)
An 80-year-old Ghanaian woman has taken pioneering steps toward ending an ancient practice which condemns dozens of women each year to a life of exile and misery as witches, the state Ghanaian Times said on Thursday.
Janet Tibu has taken legal action against the chief and elders of Peki-Avetile in the Volta region, who declared her a witch last August, fined her and cast her out of her village. Dozens of Ghanaian women suffer a similar fate each year. Some are stoned to death. Others are confined to camps where witchdoctors subject them to traditional exorcism rites after which they are forced to till the land as bonded laborers.
Tibu was accused by a traditional village tribunal last year of bewitching a local herb doctor, who claimed she was the cause of his poverty and impotence. She says she suffered humiliation as crowds jeered and taunted her after she was convicted. She has since lived in agony and poverty, isolated from her children who are forbidden to visit her.
Her court action pits the ancient customary law of the village against the modern British-based legal system inherited from the former colonial power in what could be a landmark case for hundreds of Ghanaian "witches."
Hmmm... nice goat you have there... sell it to me? No? Wait... didn't I see you casting a spell last Tuesday? Witch! Witch!