What do you do when there's a widow in your community who's past childbearing age -- much too old to remarry -- and starting to get kind of, you know, moody from menopause.
You get rid of her, of course. What good is a woman like that?
Ah, but what's the best way? Hmmmmm.
How about accusing her of being a witch? Yes, that's it! Perfect. Not only do you dispose of inconvenient women, but you have an ideal scapegoat the next time there's a drought or famine. Blame it on the witch.
And that's what has been going on in Ghana, on the west coast of Africa. It's not a recent development. This has been going on for a long time, but it was recently highlighting in the
Christian Science Monitor, although it got almost no attention. There is also
a movie about this problem.
A year ago, Fatimata Chimsi was living happily with her son, his wife, and the couple's six children in Karaga, a tiny village in northern Ghana. That is, until the longtime widow was accused of being a witch in late 2004. Furious neighbors insisted that Ms. Chimsi had "killed" an elderly man. Afraid that she might be lynched, she fled in the middle of the night, riding on the back of her son's motorbike. Today, Chimsi resides at the Kpatinga "witches" camp.
These women are blamed for whatever problems befall their village and either stoned or driven out to these "witches camps."
Women lack value if they are perceived as too old to remarry, Ms. Mohammed says. Often, accusations of witchcraft are made after family or neighbors misinterpret menopausal mood swings to mean a woman is possessed by demons, says Angela Mason, a special advocate for women and children in crisis for World Vision, an international Christian relief organization. Some victims are stoned or lynched. The "lucky" ones are sent, or escape, to "witches" camps.
But wait! There is hope for these women to be cured of their witchcraft:
When an accused witch first arrives at a camp, she is subjected to rituals. "Fetish priests" greet new arrivals with a calabash filled with chicken blood, monkey skulls, and other things. This exorcism cocktail supposedly purges the women of demons. It often causes them to become ill.
A ritual used by a chief at Gambaga camp, which has sheltered outcasts since the 1700s, involves slaughtering a guinea fowl. If it flops forward as it dies, the woman is a sorceress. If it falls backward, the woman is innocent and may return to her community.
Now there's a judicial proceeding that sounds almost as sound and reasonable as some of our own Republican appellate court decisions.
Naturally, anyone who associates with witches is also probably a witch, unless perhaps a dead guinea fowl falls their way:
Fifteen of the 45 women at Kpatinga have a granddaughter at the camp to help. None of the children attend school. Returning home after their grandmothers die can be dangerous. Their proximity to "evil" causes villagers to be fearful. The girls often are branded as witches by association, and if they return home, they likely will be shunned or banished in turn.
There are some people who are trying to end this barbaric practice. Yes, I called it barbaric. That's what it is. And I don't care if that's been their tradition for centuries. It's barbarism. Just like stoning adulterous women. Just like we used to do with witches in Salem.
There are a few rays of light, however. For instance, Timaretama, a local nongovernmental group, offers small loans to women in the Gambaga camp so they can start entrepreneurial ventures, such as producing shea butter, which is then exported to companies like The Body Shop. The idea is to help exiles save money and develop skills so they can make a fresh start somewhere else.
Mariama Alidu, one of 20 "witches" exiled four years ago after an outbreak of disease in her village, smiles as she shows off four blue bankbooks filled with deposits and withdrawals. This money allows Ms. Alidu to pay others to do her chores. She misses her family terribly. Yet, she says: "Here, I am a somebody."
Allegedly, the government of Ghana is trying to educate chiefs in some of these villages -- trying to teach them that this is a really fucked-up thing to do. Except they probably don't say "fuck" in Ghana. Or maybe they do. I don't know.
As long as they end it.