The Ministry of Gender, Children, and Social Protection, has condemned acts of violence against victims of witcraft accusations.

Speaking on the floor of Parliament, the interim Minister, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, described such attacks as barbaric and inhumane.

She indicated that the Ministry has engaged traditional and opinion leaders to discuss ways of ending violence associated with witchcraft allegations.

“The Ministry has engaged traditional leaders to discuss violence against women. As part of the engagement, a communique was sent to draw their attention to the need to stop witchcraft accusations. This is barbaric, backward, and inhumane and does not have a place in modernity.”

She also added that as part of efforts to address the problem, a team from the Ministry led by the former Gender Minister, Nana Oye Lithur, visited the witchcraft camps in 2020 to interact with them and got them enrolled onto the LEAP and National Health insurance Scheme.

“The Former Minister led a team in the year 2020 to visit the witches camps including the Gamabaga witches camp in the Northern parts of Ghana. She interacted with them, giving them mattresses, clothes, protective equipment such as nose masks sanitizers amongst others. The inmates were given two cycles of LEAP cash grants for emergency support and were enrolled unto the LEAP scheme and also the National Health Insurance Scheme as beneficiaries.”

Parts of Northern Ghana have witnessed violence related to witchcraft accusations over the years.

In April 2021, some residents of Nakpali in the Zabzugu District of the Northern Region burned the property of a 68-year-old woman they accused of being a witch.

Witchcraft accusations dominated news cycles in August 2020 after 90-year-old Akua Denteh at Kafaba in the Savannah Region was lynched on camera because of claims that she was a witch.

At the time, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, was criticised for not doing enough to protect elderly women from such attacks.