Examining Public Responses to the Vigilante Lynching of an Accused Witch in Ghana
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25159/2957-3645/14921Keywords:
witchcraft, lynching, Ghana, vigilante killings, Africa, witch, witch-huntsAbstract
Assaults on women as witches still occur in modern Ghana. In Ghana, impoverished, widowed and older women are regularly stereotyped as witches and accused of practicing malevolent witchcraft. Many are subjected to lethal and non-lethal acts of aggression. In July 2020, a nonagenarian woman was accused of witchcraft and lynched by a transitory public mob. In this article, we analysed approximately 400 readers’ comments left at a Ghana-based internet news website (Ghanaweb.com), which reported the crime. The objective was to identify and analyse the major themes expressed. The data indicate that the commenters overwhelmingly were appalled by the disregard of the victim’s human rights. In alignment with previous literature, the data also revealed that the commenters attributed the 2020 lynching incident to several established drivers of modern-day witch-lynching, such as scapegoating, patriarchal terrorism, religious manipulation, ignorance about mental health and the ageing process, and limited social safety nets for older and indigent people. Many commenters called upon the authorities to impose draconian punishment on the offenders to deter future incidents. We conclude by offering a set of recommendations for curtailing witchcraft-related violence in Ghana.
References
Adinkrah, M. (2004). Witchcraft accusations and female homicide victimization in Ghana. Violence Against Women, 10(4), 325–356. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801204263419 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1077801204263419
Adinkrah, M. (2008). Witchcraft themes in popular Ghanaian music. Popular Music and Society, 31(3), 299–311. https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760802009791 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03007760802009791
Adinkrah, M. (2011). Child witch hunts in contemporary Ghana. Child Abuse & Neglect, 35(9), 741–752. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2011.05.011 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2011.05.011
Adinkrah, M. (2015). Witchcraft, witches, and violence in Ghana. Berghahn Books. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt9qcswd DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt9qcswd
Adinkrah, M. (2019). Crash-landings of flying witches in Ghana: Grand mystical feat or diagnosable psychiatric illnesses. Transcultural Psychiatry, 56(2), 379–397. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461518823950 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1363461518823950
Adinkrah, M., & Adhikari, P. (2014). Gendered injustice: A comparative analysis of witchcraft beliefs and witchcraft-related violence in Ghana and Nepal. International Journal of Sociology and Anthropology, 6, 314-321. https://doi.org/10.5897/IJSA2014.0560 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5897/IJSA2014.0560
Asare, K. (2022, 25 July). ActionAid join CSOs to demand for law . . . to criminalise tagging people as witches. Ghanaian Times. https://www.ghanaiantimes.com.gh/actionaid-join-csos-to-demand-for-law-to-criminalise-tagging-people-as witches/#:~:text=ActionAid%20Ghana%20yesterday%20joined%20other,support%20to%20curb%20the%20practice
Ashforth, A. (2005). Witchcraft, violence, and democracy in South Africa. University of Chicago Press.
Atiemo, A. O. (2012). Punish my husband but not so hard: Religion, customary values, and conventional approaches to human rights in Ghana. Religion & Human Rights: An International Journal, 7(2), 71–94. https://doi.org/10.1163/187103212X650059 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/187103212X650059
Bannerman-Richter, G. (1982). The practice of witchcraft in Ghana. Gabari.
Bailey, W. C., & Peterson, R. D. (1999). Capital punishment, homicide, and deterrence: An assessment of the evidence. In M. D. Smith & M. A. Zahn (Eds.), Studying and preventing homicide (pp. 223–245). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483328430.n12 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483328430.n12
Behringer, W. (2004). Witches and witch-hunts. Polity Press.
Bernault, F. (2019). The shadow of rule: Colonial power and modern punishment in Africa. In F. Dikotter & I. Brown (Eds.). Cultures of confinement: A history of the prison in Africa, Asia, and Latin America (pp. 55–94). Cornell University Press. https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501721267-006 DOI: https://doi.org/10.7591/9781501721267-006
Boakye, K. E., Akoensi, T. D., & Baffour, F. D. (2022). Rehabilitation in Ghana: Assessing prison conditions and effectiveness of interventions for incarcerated adults. In M. Vanstone & P. Priestly (Eds.). The Palgrave handbook of global rehabilitation in criminal justice (pp. 201–218). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14375-5_12 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-14375-5_12
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 3(2), 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa DOI: https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2017). Thematic analysis. Journal of Positive Psychology, 12(3), 297–298. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2016.1262613
Crampton, A. (2013). No peace in the house: Witchcraft accusations as an “old woman’s problem” in Ghana. Anthropology & Aging Quarterly, 34(2), 199–212. https://doi.org/10.5195/aa.2013.20 DOI: https://doi.org/10.5195/aa.2013.20
Debrunner, H. (1961). Witchcraft in Ghana: A study on the belief in destructive witches and its effect on the Akan tribes. Presbyterian Book Depot.
Drucker-Brown, S. (1993). Mamprusi witchcraft, subversion and changing gender relations. Africa, 63(4), 532–549. https://doi.org/10.2307/1161005 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/1161005
Federici, S. (2010). Women, witch-hunting and enclosures in Africa today. Sozial. Geschichte Online, 3, 10–27. https://duepublico2.uni-due.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/duepublico_derivate_00024612/03_Federici_Women.pdf
Field, M. J. (1960). Search for security: An ethno-psychiatric study of rural Ghana. Northwestern Univer. Press.
Forsyth, M., & Eves, R. (Eds.). (2015). Talking it through: Responses to sorcery and witchcraft beliefs and practices in Melanesia. ANU Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt169wd7b DOI: https://doi.org/10.22459/TIT.05.2015
GhanaWeb. (2010, 26 November). Witchcraft: Grandma set ablaze. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/Witchcraft-Grandma-set-ablaze-198244
GhanaWeb. (2020, 23 July). 90-year-old woman beaten to death for being a witch. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/90-year-old-woman-beaten-to-death-for-being-a-witch-1015108
GhanaWeb. (2022, 3 August). 3 MPs sponsor bill to criminalise witchcraft accusations. https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/3-MPs-sponsor-bill-to-criminalise-witchcraft-accusations-1595702
GNA. (2004, 23 August). Carpenter to hang for murdering spouse. https://www.modernghana.com/news/61642/carpenter-to-hang-for-murdering-spouse.html
Jensen, G. F. (2007). The path of the devil: Early modern witch-hunts. Rowman & Littlefield.
Mohammed, W. F. (2023). Interrogating dominant ideology in media representations of witchcraft-related gendered violence: The case of Mariama Akua Denteh. International Journal of Communication, 17, 18. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/21303
Nocella, A. J. (2011). An overview of the history and theory of transformative justice. Peace & Conflict Review, 6(1), 1–10. http://www.antoniocasella.eu/restorative/Nocella_2011.pdf
Oldridge, D. (Ed.). (2002). The witchcraft reader. Routledge.
Onuzulike, U. (2013). Children accused of practicing witchcraft in Akwa Ibom, Nigeria: A qualitative analysis of online news media. International Journal of Child, Youth & Family Studies, 4(4), 447–466. https://doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs44201312696 DOI: https://doi.org/10.18357/ijcyfs44201312696
Palmer, K. (2007). Spellbound: Inside West Africa’s witch camps. Free Press.
Pepra, D. (2023, 6 April). Put spotlight on anti-witchcraft bill—GBC boss tells media. https://gna.org.gh/2023/04/put-a-spotlight-on-anti-witchcraft-bill-gbc-boss-tells-media/
Rio, K., MacCarthy, M., & Blanes, R. (Eds.). (2017). Pentecostalism and witchcraft: Spiritual warfare in Africa and Melanesia. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56068-7 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56068-7
Springer, N., Engelmann, I., & Pfaffinger, C. (2015). User comments: Motives and inhibitors to write and read. Information, Communication & Society, 18(7), 798–815. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.997268 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2014.997268
Stroud, N. J., Duyn, E. V., & Peacock, C. (2016). News commenters and news comment readers. Engaging News Project. https://mediaengagement.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/ENP-News-Commenters-and-Comment-Readers1.pdf
Ter Haar, G. (Ed.). (2007). Imagining evil: Witchcraft beliefs and accusations in contemporary Africa. Africa World Press.
Terry, G., Hayfield, N., Clarke, V., & Braun, V. (2017). Thematic analysis. In C. Willig & W. Rogers (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of qualitative research in psychology (pp. 17–37). Sage. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526405555.n2 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526405555.n2
Wilińska, M., & Boateng, D. (2022). Present-time witches: Media and the intersecting discourses of age, gender and mental health in Ghana. In V. Ylänne (Ed.), Ageing and the media: International perspectives (pp. 46–60). Bristol University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv2x00vx6.10 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1332/policypress/9781447362036.003.0004
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Unisa Press
